Air Asia favours Melbourne

Asia’s biggest low-cost airline, Air Asia, is eyeing Adelaide and Melbourne as destinations for its new medium to long haul carrier.
Air Asia X will announce its entry point into Australia in July.

An offshoot of the highly successful, no-frills, high-frequency Air Asia brand, it would begin flights between Australia and Malaysia in September, chief executive officer Tony Fernandes said yesterday.

“My two favourite routes are Adelaide and (Avalon) Melbourne,” Mr Fernandes said.

“Maybe we will go to both.

“I would love to repay their faith in us.”

The new carrier will fly from Malaysia to Australia, Japan, South Korea, China, Europe and the Middle East.

“Our philosophy is to get the fare as low as possible,” he said from his base at Sepang Airport. “We are not appealing to the corporate market. We are appealing to the market that has never flown.”

The company, which will announce its new CEO next week, has ordered 15 new Airbus A330s, due to be on-line from September next year. “There’s no turning back,” Mr Fernandes said. “We have launched that (Air Asia X), we have got staff, we have got one plane, 15 planes (on order), we are actively looking for routes.”

He expected return flights between Australia and Malaysia to cost around 800-900 Malaysian ringgit ($285-320), with two flights daily. The preferred first flight for the carrier would be to Australia. “If we get the pricing right, there is no reason why we can’t do two (flights) a day from KL (Kuala Lumpur),” he said.

Mr Fernandes said the South Australian Government had asked the company about plans to fly to Australia, and this would would open the country to 600 million southeast Asians.

“They will be flying … to KL, then catch X to Australia,” he said. “They will fly from Cambodia, they will fly from Vietnam.”

He ruled out Sydney Airport as a destination.