AirAsia to operate more flights to India

15 Feb 2009

KUALA LUMPUR: Buoyed by its successful foray into the Indian market with a direct service between Tiruchi and Kuala Lumpur, the low-cost carrier AirAsia is planning to operate service to more destinations in the country.

The airline’s service on Tiruchi-Kuala Lumpur sector has proved to be a commercial hit with the flights averaging more than 80 per cent load factor on both ways, right from the launch on December 1.

AirAsia serves the route with a 180-seater Airbus A-320 departing from the low cost carrier terminal in Kuala Lumpur.

“We are overwhelmed by the response to the service. We are considering a second frequency on the route,” Kathleen Tan, Head, Commercial, AirAsia, told visiting journalists from India and other countries recently.

Potential destinations

New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad are some of the potential destinations that the airline is looking at to introduce services, apart from a few tier-II cities. AirAsia X, a subsidiary of the AirAsia, would operate on some of these long haul sectors with flight duration of more than four hours.

The no-frills airline’s low prices have indeed become a major attraction for families to think of foreign travel. “Our success has been in making air travel affordable. Families who have never flown before are now our customers,” observed Ms.Tan.

While other low-cost airlines have struggled and held back in the wake of the global meltdown, the AirAsia has remained aggressive.

The airline operates on 110 routes already and is adding more destinations even while rapidly expanding its fleet strength.

It has developed a successful and profit-making business model through a combination of strategies to keep operational costs minimal.

Flights are served by an in-flight cabin crew of just four. They perform multi-task. They even clean up the on-flight litter to enable a quick turn around time – 25 minutes, considered one of the quickest in the industry.

Fuel efficiency is another strategic focus area. “We have taken care to see even the seat covers are light weight so as to achieve maximum fuel efficiency,” said Ms.Tan.

The airline has also invested heavily on safety and set up a training academy with an investment of $ 20 million. The AirAsia Academy, set up in association with CAE Inc. of Canada, boasts six flight simulators which replicate the normal and abnormal situations that a pilot may encounter during an actual flight.

Located adjacent to the Malaysian Airports Sepang Holding‘s engineering complex, the academy is complete with training rooms and other infrastructure to train engineers, pilots and cabin crew.