Covid-19 has grounded travel and greatly disrupted operations for the aviation industry. In response to a lack of flight demand, airlines have pivoted to selling its in-flight food to wanderlusters who miss travelling. Like Singapore Airlines, which recently offered its well-loved satay at $98 for 48 sticks as well as home delivery for its famed first-class, business-class and economy meal sets.

Malaysian low-cost airline AirAsia also forayed into F&B, though it started early in pre-pandemic 2019 by opening a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur called Santan. It serves AirAsia's in-flight meals, like nasi lemak, which you can eat with both feet planted on solid ground.

In May 2020, it moved onto food delivery within Malaysia with AirAsia Food, a platform similar to GrabFood, Deliveroo and Foodpanda that connects F&B merchants and customers.

Come March 2, AirAsia Food is launching in Singapore, according to Today. Like its competitive air ticket prices, it will charge a significantly lower commission fee of 15% per transaction (in comparison, its local competitors like GrabFood, Deliveroo and Foodpanda reportedly draw a commission of up to 30% from their merchants).

In a press release that called for businesses to join its platform, AirAsia Food is sweetening the deal with perks like:

· Special sign-on rate from as low as 8% for early bird merchants who sign up before March 1, 2021.

· Quick activation, with a fast turnaround period to go live within 48 hours after registration.

· A customer base of 1.1 million members from AirAsia's membership club BIG. Members are offered the option to earn and pay with their membership points.

· A “dedicated account manager” who will assist merchants in running online operations smoothly and provide system support on data analytics and monitoring .

The ambitious platform is also setting its sights on offering more than just makan, as it called for other merchants in the beauty, cosmetics, fashion, fresh produce and hotel sectors to join and boost its e-commerce arm.

It all sounds good, though it remains to be seen if the competitive commission rates will mean better food prices for customers (nobody wants drastically marked-up menus on delivery apps). It's also unknown if AirAsia Food will offer delivery fees lower than the longtime players here. 8days.sg has reached out to AirAsia for more information, and will update this story when we get a response.

Photos: AirAsia