Low cost airline, AirAsia has plans to penetrate into the South Indian market aggressively by expanding its network to Bangkok soon. Tony Fernandes, Chief Executive Officer, AirAsia said that his airline was planning to turn Bangkok into a hub for South Indian tourists who want to explore South-East Asia.
“Indians have become travel savvy and there is so much demand for leisure destinations. A huge number of Indians fly to Bangkok, which is less than two hours from Chennai and other cities in South India. So, we are planning to start services from Chennai and other South Indian cities to Thailand by end of the year,” he said.
For the low cost airline, which operates services from Kuala Lumpur to Chennai, Tiruchy, Kochi and Bengaluru, Kuala Lumpur is the hub and the routes are very successful as a majority of Indians who travel to China and Korea also fly via Kuala Lumpur where the load factor is more than 80 per cent from India, Fernandes added.
AirAsia operates two flights a day from Chennai to Kuala Lumpur. “We are considering flights to Phuket and Langkawi, two popular destinations in Thailand and Malaysia among Indians tourists. The airline has been getting a lot of requests to fly direct to Langkawi,” Fernandes said adding that the airline may also start services from Kozhikodi in a couple of months. With a lot of Punjabis travelling abroad, the AirAsia is also planning to start a flight from Amritsar to Kuala Lumpur.