AirAsia will begin to roll over its early delivery Airbus A320s for new aircraft in a couple of years, says Zaman Ahmad, the airline's head of customer experience and technology, speaking at ILA to announce AirAsia will become the first operator of an A320 fitted with sharklet wing-tips.

"Probably from 2014-2015 we will start rolling over the first A320s depending on [aircraft] utilisation," says Ahmad.

The Flightglobal Pro premium news and data service shows AirAsia began taking deliveries of CFM56-powered A320s in November 2005.

At 14h, AirAsia has one of the highest average daily utilisations of any carrier worldwide, while its A320s typically fly eight to nine sectors a day.

AirAsia has 116 A320s in service and is taking about 20 a year from its orderbook of 375 A320s, says Ahmad. The average age of its A320s is eight, he adds.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news