KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia X Bhd (AAX) is targeting to grow its ancillary revenue by 12% to RM150 per passenger by 2017, from RM134 for the second quarter of this year.

“We have some initiatives in hand for AAX,” said chief executive officer Benyamin Ismail. “We just started a premium lounge last week, that is going to help. We are going to have on board tablets where we are going to sell movie contents.

“We try to target about at least RM150 per pax, hopefully by next year. This year there have been a lot of new things coming up, we will give them sometime to develop,” he said after launching a collaboration between AirAsia BIG Duty Free and cosmetic products marketer SimplySiti Sdn Bhd.

Benyamin said AirAsia BIG Duty Free, the AirAsia group’s travel retail portal, contributes up to RM7 of ancillary revenue per passenger to the group.

“Internally, what we want to focus is on doubling that number or growing it to at least RM10 per passenger. Duty free is going to be a big business. Now it is a small portion of our business, so once we grow that, I think RM150 per pax is quite an easy target. It is more about getting the right product to  the customer,” added Benyamin.

For the second quarter ended June 30, 2016 (2QFY16), AAX posted an ancillary revenue of RM136.9 million, a jump of 30.84% from RM104.63 million in 2QFY15. This accounted for 15.5% of the group’s total revenue of RM883.16 million.

The ancillary revenue included payments for assigned seat, cancellation, documentation and other fees, and the on-board sales of meals and merchandise.

At yesterday’s event, AirAsia BIG Duty Free announced that SimplySiti is selling two of its cosmetic products on all AirAsia Bhd and AAX flights from this month.

Other than on-board sales, these products will also be available for pre-booking on the retail portal’s website.