Wednesday, July 26, 2006

Kuching-Perth flights in the pipeline: AirAsia

KUCHING: Low-cost carrier AirAsia Bhd may fly to Perth via Kuching after its direct flights from here to other Asean destinations are successful, chief executive officer Datuk Tony Fernandes said.

“Our priority now is the direct flights from Kuching, our second hub in Sabah and Sarawak, to Asean destinations such as Bangkok, Jakarta, the Philippines and Brunei,” he said after a CEO Luncheon Talk yesterday.

“We have other routes that we are going to (introduce) first. I think there are a lot of nearby businesses we want to get.

“We want to bring the Indonesians, Filipinos, Thais and Malaysians from the semenanjung here (Kuching) first. We will do that first before the Australians,” he said.

Malaysia Airlines has decided to cut all flights via secondary hubs - London-Langkawi-KL International Airport (KLIA), London-Penang-KLIA, Sydney-Kuching-KLIA, KLIA-Kuching-Perth and Frankfurt-KLIA-Kuching - under its Business Turnaround Plan.

The national carrier’s Kuching-Perth route, introduced three years ago, has been popular among the Australians.

Fernandes said the direct Kuching-Perth flights would happen. “Whatever we said, for sure we will do it but there is no real time frame. AirAsia will never rush to do things.”

On Fly Asian Express (FAX), a unit of Tune Air, the holding company of AirAsia, Fernandes said the airline was confident of getting the air-operating certificate before Aug 1, as it would begin flights to rural areas in Sarawak and Sabah.

“We have met with the Transport Ministry. It has been very supportive, so I don't see any problem. MAS has also given great support,” he said.

Source: BERNAMA

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Something a lot of Sarawakians had been waiting for. I hope it all goes well. Keep it up Tony.