AirAsia confident of interstate and international travel revival in the near future
KUCHING: Following the government’s announcement of the resumption of interstate travel and the reopening of tourism activities once the vaccination rate for adults reaches 90 per cent in Malaysia, AirAsia is all geared up to fully restore its domestic and international services.
This is further spurred by the success of the Langkawi travel bubble that commenced on September 16.
AirAsia has expressed confidence of a strong recovery for air travel to all the key domestic destinations and for international flights to resume in the near future, complemented by stringent health and safety protocols that the airline has put in place.
The airline has recorded overwhelming demand for domestic leisure destinations that have reopened recently including Langkawi in Malaysia, Boracay, Cebu and Bohol in the Philippines and Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Hat Yai in Thailand.
Load factors for these leisure destinations have been in the very healthy range of 80 to 90 per cent with more frequencies and routes to be added soon in line with consistently strong forward bookings.
Bo Lingam, president (airlines) for airasia Group said, “The demand is already there. People can’t wait to reunite with friends and family or take off to their favourite leisure destinations and we are well prepared to paint the skies red across Asean as soon as the time is right.
“For Langkawi alone, AirAsia Malaysia has sold over 260,000 seats in just over a week which is a strong testament to the level of pent up demand for domestic travel.
“Whilst the Covid-19 pandemic has delivered an unprecedented blow to the global aviation and tourism industries for the past 18 months, we remain committed to making the ‘air fair’ once again, through our great value fares which provide a welcome boost to tourism and the economy.
“What we have been promoting is for countries across Asean and beyond to have a standardised approach, which permits vaccinated individuals to travel freely and safely between countries without the need for quarantine or a tedious approval process.
“We remain committed to playing an active and positive role in the recovery of the Asean market with flight connectivity, frequencies and stringent safety measures in our operations.”
As vaccination rates across the globe continue to rise, AirAsia anticipates interstate leisure air travel will gradually continue to reopen first, potentially in coming weeks, and that international travel could resume within the next few months, especially in the Asean region where inoculation rates are accelerating and the airline is fully ready to welcome all guests with the highest safety standards.
To ensure safety for its guests and employees, and as part of it Covid-19 mitigation plan, AirAsia has made self-check-in mandatory for all guests.
All guests are encouraged to download and make full use of the airasia Super App, the only all-inone app that guests would need for their journey - from flight to hotel bookings, checking in, health document verification, through to boarding with the e-Boarding Pass, contactless boarding with FACES and inflight services onboard.