I am wary of the fear in investing into an airline given the past experiences of many collapses - and Malaysia Airlines has been our closest example. Thai Airways did not fare well either. The list goes on and on. But those are the traditional airlines and their possible collapse could be due to the proliferation of low costs model. Airasia's drop however warrant me to look deeper into the company as I feel that it is managed by people who are capable.

Let's look at comparison of Airasia's successful peers (except for Tiger) than look at the non-performing ones. I have taken some examples of Ryanair, Easyjet, Cebu Air (Airasia's top furious competitor in Philippines) and Tiger Airways. Why did I chose those?

Ryanair - model low costs airline operating only in Europe
Easyjet - second to Ryanair and hugely successful as well
Cebu Air - as mentioned, Airasia's top competitor in Philippines. It is dominant there and Airasia is having a tough competitor. But it is predominantly a Philippines airline.
Tiger - well, nearest financially available competitor to Airasia. Not very successful and it needed injection of capital last year.

The significant names that are not here - Southwest (largest low costs in the world and operating only in US) and Lion Air (not listed). I did not pick up Southwest because over the last year, non-US airlines have suffered from the appreciation of US Dollar but benefited from the huge drop in oil price. US Dollar of course appreciated against many currencies and Malaysian Ringgit suffered the most. However, if one is to believe that USD could not appreciate much further, this forex losses will stop. No single currency will appreciate the way USD appreciated in the last few months and continue to appreciate. Think of what the consequences would be to US economy if that happens.

Anyway on the numbers, I have picked up revenue operating gain / loss, GP and shareholders funds. Why I did not use Net Profit is due to the forex loss that some of the companies experienced including Airasia which I do not think will be a long term thing. Fundamentally it is how well the company manages the gross margin as well as the fuel hedges.

The accounting policy for foreign exchange for Airasia is as below.


Comparison

As below are the important numbers for the list of companies.


Airasia's of course is the Malaysian operation only where it can consolidate the numbers. Others are based on equity accounting.
While one can understand that Airasia's balance sheet is not that strong as compared to its stronger peers like RyanAir and Easyjet, I do not think that it is cashflow starved. One should note that Airasia's business model is to collect cash upfront and pay later. There is a period where it is benefiting from customer financing and that business model is great especially if applied to one's advantage. Airasia, to some extent have managed to use that to its advantage.

And based on its market value to its book value, would it be a reason to buy? Personally, I would say yes, especially for an airline which is still growing. There should be continuous competition but gone are the days where "everyone wants to own a low costs airline" as the barriers of entry is getting much much tougher.