AirAsia To Consider Flying To Albania

By Zairina Zainudin KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 27 (Bernama) -- AirAsia Group Bhd chief executive officer Tony Fernandes says the airline will consider flying to Albania. The Southeastern Europe nation could be one of its routes in Europe, a market which the airline had hinted about re-entering. "Why not? AirAsia is always looking for different places and I never thought about Albania. We are going to have a look. "The Albanian Minister (Tourism and Environment Minister Blendi Klosi) is very positive (about bringing us to the country). So let’s see," he told Bernama on the sidelines of the World Tourism Conference 2019 here, Tuesday. Fernandes, who was one of the speakers at the conference, shared his experience about transforming AirAsia from a small loss-making company into a global giant in the aviation industry. Klosi, who was also a speaker at the conference, welcomed AirAsia to Albania, which he said would help to promote the country’s tourism as well as its Balkan neighbours. During the conference, both of them jokingly agreed to have AirAsia fly to Albania if the country was willing to provide a free airport and promotional assistance. Previously, AirAsia X Bhd chairman Rafidah Aziz said that the airline was looking at expanding its market and had not discounted the possibility of re-entering the European market. Earlier this month, Fernandes said Thai AirAsia X would be flying to Europe by the end of this year or early next year. He said the long-haul low-cost airline was applying for approval from the relevant authorities, adding that the flights to Europe would commence from Bangkok. Meanwhile, Fernandes said sales of the AirAsia Asean Pass, which was suspended on Nov 12 last year, would likely be resumed in December this year. "We stopped it because the technology to make it user-friendly was not there," he said. AirAsia Asean Pass is a travel pass which allows guests to lock down low base fares and redeem flights to travel across 10 ASEAN countries - Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and the Philippines. -- BERNAMA