In an interesting turn of events, Malaysia’s Capital A will not be merging its airlines, but will instead move all the carriers under one existing structure, like British Airways, Iberia Airline, and Aer Lingus operate under the International Airlines Group umbrella, the airline CEO Tony Fernandes clarified.
Turns out, this is a different kind of merger. AirAsia X will be renamed AirAsia Aviation Group and there will be six airlines under it - AirAsia Malaysia, AirAsia Thailand, AirAsia Philippines, and AirAsia Indonesia, as well as AirAsia X Malaysia and AirAsia X Thailand.
“We are just injecting AirAsia airlines into AirAsia X’s listing status, there is no merger,” Fernandes told the media. He further added that each airline would continue to operate independently, as usual under one entity.
In a statement last week, Capital A decided to merge its airlines with AirAsia X to avert a potential stock market delisting. Capital A mentioned in the filing that AirAsia X would acquire the AirAsia arms serving Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines to form a new consolidated aviation group known as AirAsia Aviation. Capital A and AirAsia X were to submit their business restructuring plan, including the airline consolidation, by January 2023. The restructuring plan was scheduled to be implemented by July 2023.
As a clarification of the above statement, Fernandes said there would be no merger happening. The airlines under Capital A would instead be under AirAsia X's listing status on the stock market.