AirAsia Didn't Survive COVID Because It's a Good Airline
In March 2020, AirAsia's planes stopped flying.
Not slowed down. Stopped.
Revenue went to near zero. Debt stayed where it was. And everyone waited to see which airlines would die first.
AirAsia didn't die.
But here's what most people miss: it didn't survive by being a good airline.
It survived by quietly asking a question that changed everything.
The Comfortable Explanation
Most people think AirAsia made it because travel came back.
That's the easy story. It's also wrong.
Travel did come back. But that doesn't explain why AirAsia looks fundamentally different today than it did in 2019.
Something else happened.
Airlines Are Terrible Businesses
Let's be honest about this.
Airlines cost a fortune to run. They're hostage to fuel prices. They compete mostly on price. And they're brutally exposed to things they can't control—pandemics, wars, oil shocks, volcanic ash.
Every airline executive knows this. Most just accept it.
When COVID hit, the playbook was obvious:
- Ground planes
- Take on debt
- Wait it out
That's what most airlines did.
AirAsia did something else.
The Question That Changed Everything
Instead of asking "How do we survive until people fly again?"
AirAsia asked something deeper:
What if the flight was never the product?
Think about it.
When someone books a flight, they're not just buying a seat. They're in buying mode. They need hotels. Insurance. Ground transport. They're already trusting you with their plans.
That's not a ticket sale.
That's an entry point to everything else.
The Pivot No One Noticed
During COVID, AirAsia quietly restructured.
The airline—the planes, the debt, the operational risk—got carved out. What remained was something different:
- A logistics network (Teleport)
- An engineering services business
- A travel platform with millions of users
- A brand people already trusted
From the outside, it looked messy. Confusing even.
But the best pivots usually do.
Teleport: The Hidden Gem
Everyone describes Teleport as "air cargo."
That's like calling Amazon a bookstore.
Here's what Teleport actually is: a logistics network built on infrastructure that already exists.
The planes fly anyway. The routes are established. The costs are mostly fixed.
Every package that moves through this network is nearly pure margin.
You couldn't build this from scratch for any reasonable amount of money. AirAsia didn't have to.
The Boring Stuff Is the Good Stuff
Asia Digital Engineering does aircraft maintenance.
Not sexy. Not exciting.
But maintenance is required. By law. On a fixed schedule. Whether tickets are selling or not.
That's the kind of revenue that lets you sleep at night.
AirAsia turned a cost center into a profit center. And now they service other airlines too.
The Super App That Actually Makes Sense
Everyone tried to build a super app. Most failed.
AirAsia started from a different place: they already had the users, and those users were already in a spending mindset.
Book a flight → get offered a hotel. Book a hotel → get offered airport transfer. Need to send something → Teleport.
Other companies spend billions trying to reach customers at that exact moment of intent.
AirAsia reaches them by default.
Why This Story Gets Missed
People want clean categories.
"AirAsia is an airline."
Except now it's also a logistics company. And an engineering services provider. And a travel platform. And a fintech play.
It's messy. It doesn't fit in a box.
But the most interesting companies rarely do.
The Real Question
This isn't a story about whether travel is back.
Travel is back. That's obvious.
The real question is: what is AirAsia actually selling?
If it's selling flights, it's worth one thing.
If it's selling travel infrastructure—a platform that captures customers at the moment of intent and serves them across their entire journey—it's worth something very different.
No Guarantees
I'm not saying this is a sure thing.
Fuel prices still matter. Execution matters. The competitive landscape in Southeast Asia is brutal.
But if AirAsia wins, it won't be because planes got full again.
It'll be because they learned something most airlines never do:
The plane isn't where the value lives.
The value is in everything that moves through it.
By the time that's obvious to everyone else, it's usually too late.