AirAsia said it welcomed the announcement by the Malaysian government to fully open international borders on 1 April and is gearing up to add more flights to address pent-up demand.
Since AirAsia resumed its operations with travel bubbles and a focus on domestic services, the gradual resumption of international flying is already well underway in tandem with borders gradually reopening around the world. With the continued easing of travel restrictions, the airline group has increased its domestic flight capacity by 156 percent since October 2021 that kickstarted with the Langkawi travel bubble, and by 50 percent for international flights since the Malaysian government’s announcement of borders reopening in April, on 8 March 2022, with a total of 75 aircraft in operations currently group-wide. This was also supported by the reopening of other countries like Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia Cambodia, Singapore and Vietnam.
While the airline currently has a number of international services already operating, the announcement of the nation’s reopening will provide a welcome boost to support additional capacity in many of its core international markets in line with significant pent up demand.
Bo Lingam, Group CEO of AirAsia Aviation Group Limited (AAAGL) said: “We would like to applaud the governments around the region for their decision to reopen borders, removing travel restrictions with minimal testing requirements, thus making travel easy for everyone. We’re thrilled to be resuming more flights in all of our core markets in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia and to be adding additional services to some of AirAsia’s most popular international destinations including Bali, Manila, Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City, Phuket and more, starting in April. Domestic flying also continues to soar across the group. We have recently launched four new domestic routes in Malaysia from Kuching to Langkawi, Penang to Sibu, Johor Bahru to Bintulu and Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Terengganu this year.”
Riad Asmat, CEO of AirAsia Malaysia said: “Finally the world is starting to reopen and thanks to the reopening of Malaysia’s border we can plan to relaunch many new routes from our main hub at klia2. For the reassurance of our guests, safety is always our utmost priority and we continuously strive to provide world-class service quality and a stellar guest experience with a commitment to adhering to stringent safety rules and procedures. While we are extensively prepared to ensure all of our guests can travel safely from an operational standpoint through the robust safety and health measures that we have in place, we would also like to remind our guests to adhere to all SOPs set by the government during your travels and we can’t wait to see you on back on board our flights soon.”
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