Spring Airlines keen to work with AirAsia X

30 October 2009

But the latter does not see any chemistry between them

BEIJING: China’s No.1 privately-owned budget carrier Spring Airlines wants to work with AirAsia X but the latter does not see any chemistry between them.

Spring Airlines chairman Wang Zhenghua could not hide his disappointment that he could not meet the AirAsia X boss even once.

“If I put it in a not so nice manner, they seem evasive. We invited them for a meeting and tried to see them. But, every time we tried to meet, they did not want to see us,” he told reporters at the Aviation Outlook Asia conference here on Wednesday.

»Spring Airlines needs to understand we are not interested in interlining code-sharing of flights« AZRAN OSMAN-RANI

Wang said his company really wanted to collaborate with the Malaysian carrier and share flight resources. He said both low-cost carriers could combine routes in China and South-East Asia to expand their passenger base.

AirAsia X chief executive officer Azran Osman-Rani said his company was not looking for any profit or code-sharing model if it were to cooperate with other airlines.

“I think Spring Airlines needs to understand we are not interested in interlining code-sharing of flights. We prefer to cooperate on the basis of doing simple marketing such as I tell my passengers they can fly to Shanghai (by Spring Airlines) and you tell your customers they can fly to KL (by AirAsia X),” he said.

Azran added that the interlining code-sharing incurred costs as it required both parties to connect to each other’s system and AirAsia X wanted to keep its operational cost low.

Shanghai-based Spring Airlines flies to almost all major cities in China while AirAsia X has routes from KL to seven Chinese cities – Haikou, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Chengdu and Guilin.