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AVIATION - FLIGHTS TO KRABI,
THAILAND BY TIGER AIRWAYS |
Tiger Airways Krabi, Thailand flights from October 30
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BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
25th August, 2005: Singapore’s low-budget airline Tiger Airways is starting flights to Thai resort of Krabi from October 30, even as the airline is planning to add a host of other destinations across Asia.
The airline will launch four-times-a-week services to Krabi from Singapore, which is the airline’s fifth destination in Thailand, and represents the eighth new destination added by Tiger Airways in this year. The new route would increase Tiger Airways total number of network to routes to 11. Tiger Air has already started sales of its tickets and has priced it at S$25.98 (one way) for travel from October 30 onwards.
“We are working closely with the local tourism and hospitality industries in Thailand to ensure that the start of the popular low fares service of Tiger Airways will have a huge impact on the number of visitors to Krabi,” Tiger Airways Chief Executive Officer Tony Davis said.
According to industry analysts, the opening of Krabi flights would provide a boost to the Krabi's tourism industry. It would also raise the profile of the many tourist attractions in Krabi and make them better accessible to international travellers.
Krabi is a southern province on Thailand’s Andaman seaboard and is famous for its beach facilities and archeological artifacts. The province consists of mountains, hills, plains and mangrove forests, and includes over 130 large and small islands.
Meanwhile, Tony Davis said that it would take up to three years for Tiger Airways to breakeven, contrary to the expectations of breaking even in a year after its launch.
“But the going has been tough, amid keen competition and rising oil prices and we see a delay in breaking even,” Davis said.
"The airline industry has very high start-up costs. You have to plan for long-term success and long-term growth and that is what we are doing. When you are investing and spending a lot of money in developing routes, taking on new aircraft and recruiting new staff, it makes short-term financial performance difficult,” he said. We have always looked at three-year programme for individual routes to become profitable," he added.
Tiger Airways will also continue to push for more routes and alliances to serve markets like China. "We are taking to potential partners across the region but we are also developing our route network," Davis said.
BY OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT
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