Airasia Express Parcel Delivery Takes Off

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AirAsia Express aims to provide the ‘lowest parcel delivery fares’, similar to its airline business model. (AirAsia pic)KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia launched a parcel delivery service with logistics unit Teleport today as the Malaysian budget airline continues to pursue its “super app” strategy of offering a wide range of services.
The parcel delivery service is branded as AirAsia Express, with Teleport to serve as the last-mile delivery partner.
Teleport, which started as an aircraft belly cargo operator, has emerged as one of AirAsia’s major earning contributors even as the group’s core airline business has been battered by international border closures and movement controls amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
The logistics company aims to be a “modern-day DHL Express,” Teleport CEO Pete Chareonwongsak told Nikkei Asia. The company is in the midst of a Series A fundraising in which it aims to raise up to US$100 million (RM419 million) by year-end for a valuation of more than US$300 million (RM1.2 billion). The fundraising exercise would be its first external cash call.

Despite AirAsia’s third-quarter revenue falling by 37% year-on-year to RM295.9 million, Teleport’s sales tripled to RM157.8 million for the same period.
“When we first started (in 2018), people said, ‘You are only cargo,’ but we needed the pandemic to prove that although people couldn’t travel, businesses and products still needed to move,” he said.
“We would like to be able to grow as a standalone company and we are working towards listing the company in three years,” he said, declining to elaborate on the choice of listing destination.
Teleport also launched its first dedicated 737-800 freighter to accelerate its goal of shifting from airfreight logistics player to a complete, multimodal operator. Stationed in Bangkok, the freighter is intended to serve key markets including Hong Kong, Shanghai, Chennai, Mumbai and Southeast Asia.
The logistics firm currently has over 5,500 customers in the Asia region.
The new AirAsia Express service, meanwhile, will begin in seven major cities in Malaysia and expand to cover all of Malaysia by year-end, AirAsia super app CEO Amanda Woo told reporters in Kuala Lumpur.
“The next expansion would be to Thailand as our acquisition of Gojek would make it easier for us to expand there,” she said. “After that, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines would be our aim.”
It aims to provide the “lowest parcel delivery fares,” similar to its airline business model. The service provides options for instant delivery within an hour or within 24 hours. - FMT

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