Pay just Rs 120 for a Malaysia - Singapore return flight

27 October, 2007:

AirAsia, the Malaysian budget airline, plans to start flights to Singapore for a song. The ticket cost, in Indian rupee terms, would come to just about Rs
120 for a return trip!

AirAsia has already been granted Malaysian government’s approval to operate two daily flights each from Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Kota Kinabalu, and Kuching to Singapore. The opening up of the routes to budget airlines between Malaysia and Singapore comes under a reciprocal arrangement scheduled to be kicked off latest by January 2008. The Asean Open Sky Policy, scheduled to take off on January 1, 2009, had led both Malaysia and Singapore to sit down for talks in a bid to liberalize their air space to further boost travel and tourism between the two countries.

Ticket prices for the Singapore flights are expected to start at 9.90 ringgit (Rs 120) for return trips. AirAsia’s operations would bring about a change in
the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore route, which is exclusively served by national flag carriers Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines currently. The two majors between them fly 20 times a day between the two cities and a ticket is said to cost around 400 ringgit, ie around Rs 4,800.

The new routes are expected to expand AirAsia's connectivity to more than 80 destinations across the Asian continent. The new development is also expected to bring about additional connections for AirAsia’s sister airline AirAsia X, which is due to fly from Australia's Gold Coast on November 2, 2007, to Guangzhou, China at the end of 2007, and to Melbourne and London in 2008.