AirAsia Makes Beeline To India

New Delhi: Malaysian budget carrier AirAsia is stepping up its momentum in India with definite plans to add eight more routes in the next seven months.
The carrier started flights to India late in 2008, and flies at present to four destinations in India. Starting Jan. 27, its flights will be loaded for sale on its Web site.
This new service is a coup for the carrier, given that most airlines are reducing fleet capacity to deal with debts and waning customer demand.
Effective April 28, AirAsia will start its daily A320 Chennai-Penang flight, an old Malaysian Airlines sector. Penang is home to ethnic traffic, and AirAsia will offer fares as low as $43 from Trivandrum in South India to Kuala Lumpur.
The first week of May will see the launch of the Mumbai-Kuala Lumpur A330 service four times a week followed by Chennai-Kuala Lumpur on May 18, Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore)-Kuala Lumpur daily A320 flights two days later, and daily Hyderabad-Kuala Lumpur flights on July 18. Starting Aug 1., AirAsia will start its daily service to Delhi on an A330.
Approvals are being sought by the Ministry of Civil Aviation for Thai AirAsia to fly Bangkok-Mumbai and Bangkok-Kolkata.
The carrier is looking at flying to 15 Indian destinations by the end of 2011 once it gets approvals.
India might become a bigger market for AirAsia than China. It has more than 60 destinations globally, and will be able to open markets such as Vietnam that have no connection to India, an official told AviationWeek.
25/01/10 Neelam Mathews/Aviation Week

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Categories: Foreign Jan 2010, Low Cost General Jan 2010