Benyamin Ismail, chief executive of AirAsia X has been making contacts with the travel agents in Australia in an effort to boost tourism using the low-cost, long-haul airline’s network.
The focus of the talks was how AirAsia X can improve inbound traffic by working together with Tourism Australia and state bodies.
According to Ismail, Malaysia has become a secondary destination to Thailand and Bali.
What we want to sell through the whole markets… a fly-through product where we connect you to north Asia, we connect you to the Middle East or we connect within our ASEAN countries.
AirAsia X earlier attempt to enter the Australian market didn’t end well. The carrier lost a lot of money and was forced to dismiss flights to Adelaide. The Kuala Lumpur-based airline also has to cut some of the flight services to local airports.
The new plan is to double seasonal services from Sydney, Melbourne and Perth beginning with November this year.
Right now, AirAsia X operates daily to Sydney, 12 times per week to Perth, 11 times per week to Melbourne and five times weekly to the Gold Coast.
Mr. Ismail also said he was optimistic AirAsia X will return to Adelaide eventually.
As Ismail says, AirAsia X is looking to rebuild trust with Australian costumers via low fares guarantees and better on-time performance.
AirAsia X Strengthening Ties with Sister Airline AirAsia
Previously, AirAsia X and its sister airline AirAsia have been operating independently from one another.
That will all change according to Ismail, who said:
So what we’ve done now is that we regionally work one fare. For example, if you want to go from Sydney to Phuket you fly an AirAsia X flight to KL and then you hop on to a short-haul flight and, entirely, what you want to see as a consumer is one fare that is at least 20 per cent to 30 per cent cheaper than a competitor.