AirAsia announced to launch next December 4x weekly flights to Kunming in Yunnan (China) out of Kuala Lumpur. This will be the 24th route to China PRC for the group.
KUALA LUMPUR– AirAsia is expanding further into China with the introduction of its latest direct flights from Kuala Lumpur – Kunming, which is already available for booking since 23 October. The new route was announced by AirAsia Berhad’s Chief Executive Officer, Aireen Omar and its Commercial Director, Jasmine Lee at a press conference held in Kuala Lumpur.
AirAsia’s 24th route into China will begin operations on 10th December 2012 with four (4) flights available weekly on every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. This new route will also be operated on AirAsia’s Airbus A320 with a capacity of 180 seats.
Aireen Omar, Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia Berhad says, “The addition of the Kuala Lumpur – Kunming route enables us to further strengthen our route network into China as we now have a total of 24 routes from Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Kota Kinabalu, Bangkok, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Clark operating flights into 13 cities in China, including Kunming. According to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), AirAsia is the largest foreign airline by capacity into China at the moment, and we will continue to work hard to maintain this.”
Kathleen Tan, Group Head of Commercial, AirAsia comments, “AirAsia is very positive about our growth in China, and the addition of this new route from Kuala Lumpur – Kunming further strengthens the point. As the capital city of Yunnan, Kunming plays an important part in the development of that area and AirAsia is proud to be the more affordable bridge that connects the business community between Kunming and Malaysia. Kunming’s abundance of natural resources doesn’t only transform into great business opportunities, but also a great tourist attraction”.
The AirAsia Group has announced three other new routes recently from Bangkok to Wuhan and Xian (operated by Thai AirAsia), as well as from Kuala Lumpur to Nanning. These new routes have been receiving overwhelming response and AirAsia will be offering more promotional flights for the Kuala Lumpur – Nanning route. There is still a project for Thai AirAsia to also serve Kunming out of Bangkok.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
