分类： Air Asia

AirAsia Zest launches ferry transfer service to Boracay

MANILA – AirAsia Zest has launched a new service providing land and ferry transfers to Boracay Island to its passengers arriving at the Kalibo International Airport.

The airline said its Boracay Island Transfer Service is now available on board AirAsia Zest flights between Manila and Kalibo for a one-way fee of P520 per person.

Passengers arriving at the airport will be brought via an air-conditioned bus to Caticlan Jettyport, then via ferry and vehicle to bring them to their respective hotels located in stations 1, 2 and 3 only.

If hotels are located outside these stations, additional charges shall apply.

“As soon as our guests hop off from the comfort of our Airbus A320s at the airport, they would be able to reach their hotel’s front door with ease via comfortable buses and modern fast crafts of our most trusted local one-stop transportation partner, Southwest Tours,” said AirAsia Zest executive vice president and chief operating officer Joy Caneba.

AirAsia recently announced it will start direct flights connecting Kuala Lumpur to Kalibo on April 18 with new 4 times weekly route every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.

AirAsia looking at Kuching-Manila flights soon

KUCHING: Low cost airline AirAsia Bhd will be offering direct flights from Kuching to Kota Baru effective March this year, its commercial chief Kenny Wong said yesterday.

He said the thrice weekly direct flights was in tandem with the ‘Visit Malaysia year 2014′ programme that was currently being held to bring in international tourists to these two destinations.

To promote the sector further AirAsia, he said, is also offering free seats that could be reserved through the website www.airasia.com. from today until Feb 2.

On a related noted the airline is also looking to establish direct flights between Kuching and Manila in the near future.

This follows its Miri-Manila route which was launched in December last year and has seen a good response.

Air Asia Berhad’s chief of staff Johanatan Yabut said the airline was now looking to increase connectivity between Kuching and Manila.

He said the Philippines was the youngest member of the AirAsia family, having launched itself in 2012.

“We’re trying to focus our marketing strategy to building this network connectivity especially with East Malaysia. Miri is not only a gateway to Sarawak but also Brunei.

“With us being a low cost airline and affordable to everyone, it makes sense to build a capital to capital city route, he added.

Currently the airlines offers flights from Kota Kinabalu, in Sabah, to Manila and Cebu in the Philippines.

Yabut said Phillipines was a challenging sector to penetrate as it was hevily saturated but Air Asia’s purchase of a 49% stake in Philippine’s Zest Airways last March had given it a foot in the island.

‘We’re fighting hard to get a foothold there because Philippines is an underserved market in Asean,” he said.

AirAsia to introduce ‘dramatically’ low fares in India, expects launch in March-April

DAVOS: Hopeful of launching flights in India in next 2-3 months, Air Asia chief Tony Fernandes says that the airline would introduce ‘dramatically’ low fares in the country, which would be cheapest in the market and take air travel to masses.

Fernandes, who is here for World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting, said that AirAsia India is fully prepared from its side for the launch and is waiting for final government approvals that should come soon and help it begin flights by March-April this year.

“I think we are coming very close and March-April should be time when we should begin the India operations,” the Malaysia-based airline major AirAsia’s Chief Executive Officer said in an interview.

AirAsia has partnered with Tata group and Arun Bhatia-led Telstra Tradeplace for AirAsia India, which is looking to run low-cost passenger airline service in the country.

Fernandes said that all preparatory work has been completed by the company for launch of its flights and it is just waiting to “open the sale” of the tickets.

Known to have revolutionised the airline market in Malaysia and some other Asian countries through low-cost airfares, AirAsia chief said that the strategy for India would be to offer “cheapest” possible tickets.

“We have to be the cheapest and stimulate the market. We have to allow the common man to fly. That is my message to the Indian government and the state governments that flying is not only for the rich,” he said.

“What I want to say is that flying is a great economic driver and to get more people flying, we have to reduce the costs. This may be hard for the state governments, because aviation fuel tax is a good cash cow, but if you see in medium to long term, the benefits of flying are huge. You can see the success in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and many other places and we can do the same in India as well,” Fernandes said.

High taxes and other costs have been a major reason for AirAsia thinking to start its domestic flights in India with Chennai as a hub and not the bigger centres like Delhi and Mumbai.

Expressing optimism, Fernandes said that some state governments are open to the idea of lowering air travel costs and more states are looking at this.

When asked whether people should expect dramatically low prices at the time of launch of flights in India, which AirAsia has done in other markets, Fernandes replied in affirmative.