Holiday flights high on wishlist
FLIGHTS to holiday hot spots such as Bali and Fiji are on Avalon Airport’s radar once it starts an international service to Kuala Lumpur with fares to the Malaysian capital tipped to be as little as $100.
Airport chief executive Justin Giddings said he had already fielded interest from other international airlines since securing AirAsia X flights to Malaysia.
Work is set to start on the airport’s new international terminal, which will house crucial support agencies.
“Once you have the border agencies, Customs and quarantine, the process is a lot easier for (other carriers).” Mr Giddings said.
“We really needed a champion like AirAsia to take the plunge and be the catalyst to get all these systems in place.”
He said AirAsia was adding Airbus A320neo to its fleet, which would have the reach to fly to Bali “but they are a year or two away”.
AirAsia X’s two daily flights into Avalon give it a maximum capacity of about 275,000 passengers each way a year, with the airport hoping to reach 500,000 international passenger movements in the first 12 months.
Mr Giddings said the deal to secure AirAsia was heavily incentivised towards growth and it was hoped total international passengers with the carrier would double over the next four years.
AirAsia group’s head of commercial, Barry Klipp, said the two key factors to increase the number of AirAsia flights out of Avalon were the commercial success of the initial service and aircraft availability.
“There’s huge opportunity to grow,” Mr Klipp said while in Geelong preparing for the marketing of the new service.
“We believe it will work. It needed someone to jump in and we took that opportunity.”
There is an industry expectation that flights from Avalon to Kuala Lumpur could be as low as $100 but Mr Klipp said it was too early to reveal pricing.
“We are known as a lowcost operator and that will get people in,” he said.
Mr Klipp has been touring the region as AirAsia prepares to market the Avalon service to customers across SouthEast Asia.
He said there would be a focus on educating AirAsia customers about the experiences on offer on the Bellarine Peninsula and Surf Coast while he acknowledged many travellers would still head to Melbourne.