SEPANG (Sept 8): Low-cost carrier AirAsia Bhd aims for its loyalty programme to contribute about 5% to group's total revenue in next year on the back of the newly-launched freedom flyer programme.

Its group chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said currently the loyalty programme only accounted for 2% of the group's total revenue.

"In 2018, we anticipate there will be a 5% addition to our revenue with the newly-launched loyalty programme plus the co-brand card that we are in negotiation with," he told reporters after the launch of the programme here today.

Fernandes said AirAsia is also looking at partnering with more banks to roll out co-brand cards.

"We haven't finalised yet and we are working with Mastercard on that," he said.

Currently in Indonesia, AirAsia has a co-brand card with CIMB Niaga, while in Malaysia with Citibank and in Thailand with Bangkok Bank.

The new loyalty programme is designed to make it easier, faster and better for loyal guests to earn AirAsia BIG points, and it is based on a unique membership status system determined by how often guests fly.

"This programme is great and I anticipate this [is] going to be [a] very successful programme.

"We already have 13 million members as a whole, this is the bigger loyalty programme so we believe it is easier to [book] flight and easier to get points," he said, adding that the programme would help to grow the membership numbers tremendously.

AirAsia posted a 46.49% revenue growth to RM2.38 billion in the second quarter ended June 30, 2017 (2QFY17) from RM1.62 billion a year earlier.

However, its net profit came in nearly 73% lower at RM92.45 million, from RM342.12 million in the previous corresponding quarter, mainly due to deferred tax liabilities recorded in the quarter.

For the cumulative six months ended June 30, 2017 (1HFY17), AirAsia's revenue grew 42.5% to RM4.6 billion from RM3.23 billion; however, its net profit was lower at RM762.4 million compared to RM1.22 billion a year ago.

At the midday break today, AirAsia rose 2.65% or 9 sen to RM3.49 with 10.72 million shares traded, for a market capitalisation of RM11.5 billion.