KL will be hub for flights to India, says AirAsia

LOW-COST carrier AirAsia Bhd (5099) will concentrate on using Kuala Lumpur as its hub for flights to India, said its top official.

While the group plans to offer flights from Bangkok to Delhi, Kolkata and Amritsar next year, it does not plan to have flights from Indonesia to India for now.

"We will continue to use KL as a hub for our flights to India," group chief executive officer Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes told reporters in Sepang last Friday.

With four Indian routes from Kuala Lumpur under its belt currently, the airline hopes to add additional routes like KL-Chennai, KL-Bangalore, and KL-Hyderabad by the middle of next year.
"We have 20 potential airports that we can go to in India. We are not just looking at tourists, but the small and medium enterprises such as the textile businesses that will benefit from these flights," Fernandes said after watching the launch of the Kuala Lumpur-Kolkata flights in India via video conference.

AirAsia presently has two daily Kuala Lumpur-Trichy flights and its latest additions are Kuala Lumpur-Kochi, Kuala Lumpur-Trivandrum and Kuala Lumpur-Kolkata.

Long-haul affiliate AirAsia X will launch its new Indian routes next, with flights to Mumbai and Delhi from Kuala Lumpur before the year-end.

Meanwhile, AirAsia's next new route will be Penang-Chennai, which should start by April next year.

The airline will utilise some eight to 10 aircraft for its Indian routes.

Fernandes said that with AirAsia now flying to Asean, China and India, it has the potential to reach some 2.5 billion people.

In another development, Fernandes also received the Orient Aviation Person of the Year for 2009 award last Friday, given by the Hong Kong-based aviation industry publication Orient Aviation.

Orient Aviation chief executive Barry Grindrod said Fernandes was the first person to receive the award whose airline is not affiliated with the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines.

He pointed out how legacy airlines have followed AirAsia's lead and entered the low-cost travel market.