AirAsia Bhd will take delivery of 275 Airbus A320 aircraft over the next 14 years as part of its fleet expansion exercise, said chief executive officer Tony Fernandes.

He said 200 aircraft would comprise the A320neo model while the A320 would account for the remaining 75 aircraft and they would complement AirAsia’s existing fleet of 100 aircraft which together would be worth US$25 billion.

“The 200 A320neo has a market price of up to US$18 billion while the 75 A320 will have a market price of US$7 billion,” Tony told reporters after taking delivery of AirAsia’s 100th Airbus A320 aircraft at the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal in Sepang today.

The latest delivery will make the budget carrier the largest Airbus A320 aircraft operator in South-East Asia.

AirAsia currently has 58 Airbus A320 based in Malaysia, 22 aircraft based in  Thailand, 18 aircraft based in Indonesia and two aircraft based in the Philippines.

Tony said with the increase in the number of aircraft, AirAsia and AirAsia X would increase their flight frequencies to key destinations and introduce new routes.

“We will fly to Lombok, Indonesia, and focus on adding new routes in China. We have so far identified three destinations, namely Xiamen and two other routes.

“It is also my aspiration to fly AirAsia to Sao Paulo, Brazil. I have received numerous requests to fly there from Brazilians but I guess we would have to wait as it will take some time (to materialise).

“AirAsia X will have to wait for the right time and for the right type of aircraft. That's the main reason why we have suspended our routes to London and Paris,” he said.

On passenger traffic, Tony said he was cautiously positive of AirAsia moving forward, hoping that the budget airline would continue to register growth in numbers in tandem with many other budget airline operators worldwide.

“It’s very difficult to say. The first quarter has been always a slow quarter for us. But I am positive,” he said.

In 2011, 29.860 million passengers travelled by AirAsia, up from 25.681 million passengers recorded by the airline, in 2010.

Capacity jumped 13.5 percent to 37.506 million and load factor increased two percent to 80 percent.

- Bernama