AIRASIA EXPECTS NEW ROUTES TO DO WELL

By Zakaria Abdul Wahab

SINGAPORE, March 2 (Bernama) -- AirAsia expects its new routes between
Singapore and four Indonesian cities to do well, judging from the over 50,000
seats snapped up during its six-day promotion sale last week despite the current
gloomy economic conditions.

From this March 24, the low-cost carrier's Indonesian operations will start
to operate four direct scheduled flights from Singapore to Jakarta twice daily,
and to Bali, Bandung and Yogyakarta daily.

AirAsia's commercial regional head Kathleen Tan said "people still need to
fly despite the economic slowdown", adding that some would fly out just to
de-stress themselves from the economic doldrums and Indonesia could provide the
suitable holiday spots for such people.

At a media briefing here Monday, she said the new routes would be popular
among Singaporeans and the airline was targeting between 60 and 80 percent of
passenger load to each destinations.

On the Singapore market, Tan said the airline hoped to attract the business
travellers, family and students for the four new air services.

Indonesia AirAsia's chief executive officer Dharmadi said the airline hoped
the new routes could help stimulate the tourism industry in Indonesia and
Singapore as the cheap fares and frequencies would attract more tourists from
both sides.

He said Indonesia received over a million visitors from Singapore last year
while about 1.76 million Indonesians visited the island republic.

Dharmadi also said that AirAsia planned to expand its air services from
Singapore to include other major Indonesian cities such as Medan, Balikpapan and
Semarang by this year.

Currently, AirAsia only flies to Pekanbaru, Sumatra, out of Singapore.

Indonesia AirAsia is an affiliate of AirAsia Bhd, the leading and largest
low-cost carrier in Asia serving 114 routes covering 64 destinations in the
region.

-- BERNAMA