The end of Asia’s low-cost airlines?

The boom in Southeast Asian low-cost airlines has come to a halt due to the coronavirus outbreak. The financing of Malaysian AirAsia and Vietnamese VietJet is shaky. The Indonesian Lion Air has halted its planned IPO. But even before the pandemic, concerns arose as to whether the aircrafts, which had been ordered during a decades-long buying frenzy, would eventually be delivered. Hundreds of planes are still on the order books.

Before the outbreak of the pandemic, Boeing estimated that Southeast Asian airlines would need 4,500 aircraft over the next 20 years, with Vietnam leading the traffic growth. This would create around 182,000 jobs for new professional pilots, cabin crews or technicians.

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