AirAsia to run Bhubaneswar-Kuala Lumpur flights from April 26

It said new route offers rich culture, tantalising food scene, multi-faceted sights of Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia-based low-cost airline AirAsia has added Bhubaneswar to the list of destinations in India with four weekly direct flights from Kuala Lumpur. It will commence operations on April 26, 2017, making AirAsia Group's 16th route into India.

On February 17, the low-cost carrier had signed a pact with the Odisha government for running direct international flights from Bhubaneswar to Kuala Lumpur.

This new route is operated exclusively by AirAsiaBerhad (flight code AK) and will offer guests an experience of the rich culture, tantalising food scene and multi-faceted sights of the country's capital city, Kuala Lumpur, the company said in a statement.

Celebratory all-in-fares from Rs 999 one way are available for booking from February 23 until 5 March 2017 for the travel period from April 26, 2017, until October 27, 2017.

"With Bhubaneswar now added to our extensive network, AirAsia is unlocking the potential of international air travel from Kuala Lumpur to Eastern India and its surrounding areas. We are thrilled to be serving Bhubaneswar direct, a huge market that no other airline is serving directly from Malaysia. Now, everyone from across the region can connect to Bhubaneswar with AirAsia via Kuala Lumpur. At the same time, the people of Odisha can use Bhubaneswar as a gateway to our extensive route network to Asean and beyond, where they will have access to over 120 destinations across our extensive route network", Aireen Omar, chief executive officer of AirAsiaBerhad said.

AirAsia Group also connects Bengaluru, Visakhapatnam, Kolkata, Kochi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Tiruchirappalli, New Delhi directly to Kuala Lumpur, and from Chennai, Bengaluru, Kochi and Kolkata directly to Bangkok in Thailand.

AirAsia was selected through competitive bidding to start operations from Odisha. The state government had invited an Expression of Interest (EoI) from the scheduled air carriers for running flights to destinations in South East Asia like Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur. To woo the air carriers, the state government had agreed to provide reasonable Viability Gap Funding (VGF) in the form of subsidy grant.