AIRASIA SELLS 13,000 SEATS FOR NEW TIANJIN ROUTE WITHIN A WEEK

BEIJING, Feb 19 (Bernama) - Despite the economic gloom, Malaysia's budget
carrier AirAsia has sold 13,000 seats for its new service to Tianjin, since
bookings opened a week ago.

Tianjin is AirAsia's first destination in northern China.

AirAsia's inaugural flight to the busy port city will take off on April 2,
the eighth overall destination in China and the airline has plans to grow its
mainland network to three more cities.

"We have already received 13,000 bookings for Tianjin with about 15 per cent
from China and the rest mostly from Malaysia," Kathleen Tan, Air Asia's
commercial regional head, told Bernama after meeting Beijing-based media and
travel agents on Thursday to promote the new route.

One-way tickets from Tianjin are sold from RM199 from Kuala Lumpur and 428
yuan(RM1=1.9 yuan) from Tianjin.

The port city, which co-hosted the 2008 Olympics football competition, is 30
minutes by high speed train to Beijing's South Station.

AirAsia will use a new A330 plane with 383 seats for the direct six-hour and
five times weekly service.The flight will depart Kuala Lumpur at 8.30am and
arrive in Tianjin at 3.50 pm. There is no time difference between Malaysia and
China.

Tan projected AirAsia's passenger load from China this year to rise to 1.5
million from 1.1 million last year.

Chengdu, the provincial capital of Southwestern Sichuan province, is the
next stop for Air Asia in the second half of the year, Tan said.

"There is good potential in Chengdu with many Malaysians working there as
well as other businessmen and foreign investments," she said.

AirAsia already services Guangzhou, Guilin, Haikou, Hangzhou and Shenzhen in
China and the Special Adminstrative Regions (SAR) of Hong Kong and Macao.

It has also announced plans to expand to the cities of Chongqing and Xian on
the mainland.
--BERNAMA