AirAsia Bhd, Asia's leading low-cost carrier, posts a 9 percent growth in revenue in the second quarter this year despite a slight drop in net operating profit, local media reported Wednesday.

Revenue grew by 9 percent to 1.18 billion ringgit ($378 million) in the second quarter, compared with 1.08 billion ringgit in the corresponding period last year.

AirAsia said the increase was driven by a 10 percent growth in passenger volume and a higher average fare for each passenger.

The budget airlines carried 4.9 million passengers in the second quarter.

Although AirAsia's Net Operating Profit reported dipped 3 percent to 130.94 million ringgit ($42 million) on the year-on-year basis, its newly-pointed Chief Executive, Aireen Omar said AirAsia "has continued to outperform each quarter by posting healthy profits with the year to date average fuel price up 4 percent year on year."

Meanwhile, AirAsia posts a Net Profit of 1.195 billion ringgit ($382 million), a more than 10 times increase after taking fair value gains in the listing of its Thai affiliate into account.

Aireen was confident in the outlook of the remaining of the year, saying AirAsia is on course for another good year in terms of performance.

"We expect to launch more exciting new routes and increase frequencies on few routes within Asean in the second half of the year."

"This will be supported by the deliveries of 13 brand new A320s to be distributed among the five entities. To cater for the high demand traffic throughout the region, AirAsia has brought forward additional aircraft in 2013 and 2014 bringing the total number of aircraft to 21 and 24 respectively," she added.