Malaysian budget airline Air Asia is planning to double its services to India by August 2010. The airline which presently operates 70 flights per week to major southern cities is planning to add another 78. The new services include Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.
Speaking to reporters in Chennai, Kathleen Tan, regional head of commercial - AirAsia Berhad, said that presently the airline operates flights to southern cities of Tiruchy, Kochi, Thiruvanthapuram and Kolkata. The airline plans to introduce new service to Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and New Delhi in a phased manner.
“Services to Chennai will commence in May and the ticket cost would be Rs 3,489,” added Jasmine Lee, commercial, Air Asia.
She added, the airline’s sister concern Thai Asia is likely to introduce services to New Delhi, Kolkata from May. “We also applied for licences to operate flights to the cities of Amritsar and Mumbai,” she added.
Once this service starts, our number of services will increase to 160 every week, said Lee.
Apart from regular travelers, the airline is also targeting trans-shipment travellers, added Tan. She said, presently, the airline operating to over 70 destinations with over 130 routes. She added, India is an important market for the airline. “Our load factor is around 80 per cent in India and 60 per cent of the travellers are flying for the first time.”
The airline bet on online ticket booking, presently 80 per cent of the tickets are booked through online, “which we will continue to encourage, since it will bring down the cost for the passenger,” said Lee.
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“Our vision is to be the largest low cost airline in
Asia and serving to three billion people, who are presently underserved due to the poor connectivity and high fares,” said Tan.
The eight-year-old airline has carried over 85 million passengers and presently has 91 aircraft.