AirAsia plans more stops in India soon

AirAsia and AirAsiaX still expanding while other airlines downsizing

Kuala Lumpur: While many airlines in the world are grounding airplanes and cutting down on frequencies, AirAsia Bhd and its sister airline AirAsiaX are still expanding and plan to fly to several destinations in India this year.

“There is a slowdown but people are still travelling. Many are also switching from premium travel to low-cost travel and that is why we are just expanding,’’ said AirAsia group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes.

“AirAsia and AirAsiaX have been expanding to China and this year our focus will be India. We started off with flights to Trichi in Tamil Nadu at the end of last year and have seen high load factors. Now we want to expand further into several destinations in India,’’ he told StarBiz in an interview.

The destinations on the India list include Hyderabad, New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Kochi, Madurai and Calcutta.

AirAsiaX would begin flights to Hyderabad in October, he said.

But flights originating from Bangkok to India will come online earlier.

“We will fly the Amritsar and Calcutta routes even sooner but out from Bangkok,’’ Fernandes said without elaborating. “India is a huge market and we want to be in that market.’’

AirAsia takes on routes whose durations are four hours and below while AirAsiaX plies routes beyond five hours.

The only thing that could slow down the group’s plans is landing rights but Fernandes remains positive that the airlines will get the rights to fly into the destinations they want this year.

Passengers boarding an AirAsia plane in its inaugural flight to Trichi in Tamil Nadu.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Monday that air traffic for Asia declined 13.5% in December 2008 with premium travel showing the greatest degree of weakness.

Demand fell faster at 8.4% and the load factor was down 3.3%.

Business travel slumped 13.3% while that of economy dropped 5.3%.

“We are still going ahead with our expansion as low-cost travel is what consumers want,’’ Fernandes said.

The AirAsia chief said even Colombo and Maldives are on the cards this year but he would not reveal the schedule dates for the flights.

Both AirAsia and AirAsiaX fly to six destinations in China besides Hong Kong.

AirAsia flies to Guanzhou, Guilin, Haikou and Shenzhen.

AirAsiaX services the Hangzhou (Shanghai) route and will start plying the Tianjin route soon.

The airlines are also considering flying to Chengdu and Xian in the future.

AirAsia and AirAsiaX fly 114 routes covering 64 destinations.

AirAsiaX is currently gearing for its inagural flight to London via Stanstead on March 11 while Dhaka is next on AirAsia’s list.