AirAsia was named the World's Best Low-Cost Airline and Asia's Best Low-Cost Airline for the eighth straight year at the 2016 Skytrax World Airline Awards. — VNS Photo Courtesy of AirAsia.

HCM CITY (Biz Hub) — AirAsia has signed a firm order with Airbus for buying 100 A321neo aircraft.

The deal was announced at the Farnborough Airshow on July 12 by AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes and Airbus President and CEO Fabrice Brégier.

The contract marks the first order placed by AirAsia for the largest model in the best-selling A320 family. Seating up to 236 passengers in a single class layout, the A321neo will enable the airline to increase capacity while benefitting from the lowest operating costs in the single aisle category.

The purchase sees the total number of A320 family aircraft ordered by AirAsia rise to 575, reaffirming its position as the largest airline customer for Airbus's single aisle aircraft.

Fernandes said: "AirAsia Group currently operates close to 1,000 flights per day to more than 120 destinations in 24 countries. We recorded a robust load factor of 85 per cent in the first quarter of 2016, up 8 percentage points from the same period last year, and we are confident of maintaining this momentum going forward.

"The A321neo will help us meet ongoing strong demand as well as further reduce our cost per available seat kilometre across the group, which will translate to lower air fares for our guests."

On the same day AirAsia was named the World's Best Low-Cost Airline and Asia's Best Low-Cost Airline for the eighth straight year at the 2016 Skytrax World Airline Awards held at the Farnborough International Airshow.

AirAsia X won the World's Best Low-Cost Airline Premium Cabin and World's Best Low-Cost Airline Premium Seat awards for the fourth year in a row at the 2016 Skytrax World Airline Awards.

Dubbed the "Oscars of the Aviation Industry", the Skytrax Awards are the global benchmark of airline excellence with over 19 million customer surveys completed world-wide by more than 104 nationalities, measuring standards across 41 key performance indicators of an airline's frontline products and services. — VNS