KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 9): AirAsia Bhd's long-haul, low-cost airline affiliate AirAsia X Bhd (AAX) carried 14% less passengers for the third quarter ended Sept 30, 2015 (3QFY15) at 901,884 compared with 1.04 million a year ago, in line with the decline in capacity of 7%.

In a statement today, AAX said its passenger load factor also fell by 6 percentage points (ppt) to 75% from 81% a year ago.

AAX attributed the decline to the spillover effect from the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) outbreak since May that had resulted in passenger traffic from Kuala Lumpur to Seoul and Busan falling by 14% year-on-year in 3QFY15.

The challenging aviation regulation in Indonesia also posted slight drag in Australia's passenger traffic as uncertainties arise towards AAX Group's brand in Australia but immediate comeback is seen after the licensing issue resolved by early October 2015.

In addition to that, the depreciation of the ringgit against the US dollar in 3QFY15 has set temporary slide in the outbound travel demands to stronger currency markets, especially at the end of July to August 2015 when the exchange rate exceeded the 4.00 US dollar mark to hit its lowest at 4.48 in end-September.

As for its fleet, AAX operates 26 Airbus A330s as at Sept 30, 2015, with 20 based in Malaysia, four in Thailand and two in Indonesia.

AAX shares closed unchanged at 20.5 sen today, valuing it at RM850.4 million.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company's profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)