AirAsia to add new routes to Singapore network

Peanuts Online, Wednesday, 1 April 2009

Banking on the success of its 4 new routes between Indonesia and Singapore, AirAsia is now looking at adding more routes to the island-city in 2009, said its Group CEO Tony Fernandes.

Inaugural flights between Singapore and Indonesian cities of Jakarta, Bandung, Yogyakarta and Bali took off on 24-Mar-09, recording forward bookings of 80,000 so far. AirAsia is the only airline flying the Singapore-Bandung route and is the first low-fare airline to service the Singapore-Yogyakarta sector.

AirAsia’s first route between Indonesia and Singapore was from Pekanbaru, which commenced in August last year.

Apart from Indonesia, AirAsia currently flies between Singapore and the Malaysian cities of Kuala Lumpur (7 daily flights), Kuching (1) and Kota Kinabalu (1), as well as Bangkok (4) and Phuket (1) in Thailand. These bring AirAsia’s total number of weekly flights to and from Singapore to 140.

Fernandes said, “Singapore is very special to AirAsia and we consider it a virtual hub. AirAsia’s latest Indonesia-Singapore link forms the final piece of our network jigsaw puzzle as it resembles the importance of the AirAsia network, making it the most powerful in Asia. Currently, we have a combined total of 10 routes connecting Singapore and we are looking at introducing at least 3 more new routes this year. Based on our projections, we will carry a total of 2 million guests to and from Singapore in 2009.”

AirAsia is considering a number of cities to be linked to Singapore and among the destinations in the pipeline are Penang and Langkawi in Malaysia, as well as Medan and Surabaya in Indonesia. AirAsia will also increase the frequencies of some of the existing routes to Singapore this year.

Fernandes said, “Given the current economic climate, this positive link between these new services is indeed such an encouraging response. Greater connection to both countries would not only boost economic growth by providing better access to markets but also enhance links within travel, trade and tourism. It is also a perfect match as both hubs, Singapore and Indonesia are able to feed traffic to the cities, connect to other points serviced by AirAsia’s extensive routes and international destinations serviced by AirAsia’s long-haul affiliate, AirAsia X via the Kuala Lumpur hub. This initiative will also help the pace of integration between Indonesia and Singapore in particular, and bridge ASEAN closer by enabling intra-Asean travel with AirAsia’s connectivity and route network via our strategic hubs in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.”

Meanwhile, CEO of Indonesia AirAsia, Mr. Dharmadi commented: “These new routes signify our effort in realizing the open skies policy. Despite the economic uncertainties, Indonesia still recorded the largest number of tourist arrivals to Singapore among Asean countries. This good indication of strong growth will definitely instill integration between Indonesia and Singapore, and to enable intra-Asean travel with AirAsia’s connectivity and route network via our strategic hubs in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.”