AirAsia X plans Mumbai, Delhi, Amritsar flights

New Delhi: Kuala Lumpur-based AirAsia is looking at major expansion in India. The airline, which at present has a daily flight from Trichy to Kuala Lumpur, is planning to start new flights on the Delhi, Mumbai and Amritsar routes soon.
The largest low-cost carrier in Asia will add new routes through its long-haul affiliate AirAsia X. “We are in talks with the authorities in India for introducing more flights. As and when we get the approvals, we will start our operations on routes such as Mumbai, Delhi, Amritsar and Goa,” Azran Osman-Rani, chief executive officer, AirAsia X told Financial Chronicle.
AirAsia has been trying to become a pan Asia low-cost carrier though it posted a loss in the October-December 2008 quarter at 176.9 million Malaysian ringitt ($47.9 million) compared with about 40 per cent jump in profit in the previous year.
While AirAsia will focus on the southern cities, AirAsia X would look at northern cities in India. “We will be acquiring about four new A330 wide body planes by the fourth quarter of this year after which we’ll have a fleet of eight planes. We have similar plans for India as we had for our expansion in China. AirAsia will look at the seven cities in southern India and AirAsia X will focus on northern cities,” Osman-Rani said.
The airline, which has many weekly flights to destinations Australia, China, will start five weekly services between Kuala Lumpur and London from March 11. It hopes to target regular passengers from Trichy going to London who otherwise go to Chennai for the London flight.
11/03/09 Parul Chhaparia/mydigitalfc.com

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Categories: Foreign Mar 2009, Low Cost General Mar 2009