Remember when Ryanair threw a hissy fit about bad coverage and "retaliated" by giving away over a million free seats? This new deal from low-cost carrier AsiaAir has going is just like that, rounded down a few thousand seats. Except this the deal opens up a huge vacation window next summer. And it covers over 70 destinations in China, India, Taiwan, Indonesia and Thailand. And you don't have to fly on Ryanair. All things that we are very, very in favor of, but let's hear what they have to say:

AirAsia’s regional commercial head Kathleen Tan said when the economy was tough, people looked for traveling options that offered them better value for money. 'With no fuel surcharge and administration fee, this deal offers fantastic value to our guests'...she said to complement the free flights, AirAsia’s one-stop travel portal was also offering deals and packages including “free rooms” in more than 180 Asia-Pacific hotels online.

]]> Omri 2009-11-11T15:34:25-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/11/9/14424/3962

The latest list for 2010 travel trends put out by the Lonely Planet people says something we've been saying for ages: Malaysia is hot.

With budget long-haul carrier Air Asia X turning Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur into a hub that's easy and cheap to get to from pretty much everywhere, we knew it wouldn't be long before people woke up to all the great experiences they can find in Malaysia itself. ]]> amandak 2009-11-11T15:09:25-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/23/135725/17

In our next life, we'd like to return as a baby born aboard an Air Asia flight. Talk about lucky—a pregnant woman on a flight between Penang and Kuching on Borneo went into surprise labor while in the air, prompting the plane to try for an emergency landing in Kuala Lumpur, but the baby popped out before they could get on the ground.

After the successful delivery, the mother and child were transported to a KL hospital, where they were visited by the higher-ups at Air Asia, who presented them with the rights to free flights for life. Assuming that Air Asia will be around until the kid hits retirement in something like sixty years, he could really make a name for himself traveling around Asia—or beyond, since Air Asia now also flies to both London and is busily signing paperwork to come to both Paris and Los Angeles. Boy oh boy are we jealous of this little boy. The question now is...did he kinda join the mile high club just being born up there?

Related Stories:
· Lifetime free flights for baby born on plane [AFP]
· Talking With Air Asia's CEO Tony Fernandes About US Plans [Jaunted]
· Air Asia coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: jetalone]]]> JetSetCD 2009-10-23T14:09:20-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/10/12/12924/122

Go get 'em low-cost carrier Air Asia X is taking another step towards world domination—well, their words were "global expansion"—with the big announcement that they have now received approval to start up cheap long-haul flights from Kuala Lumpur to Paris.

None other than French president Nicolas Sarkozy himself informed Malaysian Prime Minister Razak this week that Air Asia X would be allowed to land at the Orly Airport in Paris. Air Asia X hasn't yet made more details public; we're in the dark on how soon this service will start, and what it will cost, but they launched their Kuala Lumpur to London service earlier this year, and you can grab those flights for around $250 one way.

We figure it's only reasonable to guess that the Paris version won't be too different. These low-cost long-hauls are certainly giving us ideas for some amazing budget around-the-world trips—we might go start loading up our backpacks while Air Asia decides on Paris airfares.

Related Stories:
· Air Asia To Start Paris Flights [AFP]
· Air Asia X Wants to Long-Haul You From New York and California [Jaunted]
· Air Asia X Launches Low-Cost, Long-Haul Service [Jaunted]

[Photo: Deanster1983] ]]> amandak 2009-10-12T09:18:36-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/20/22329/4537

A Jaunted Exclusive

We've been following the secretive saga behind the Air Asia X plane gone native—meaning it slipped into some Oakland Raiders livery—ever since May when it's tail was spotted getting the new paintjob. We speculated that perhaps this meant one of two things: either the Oakland Raiders football team was chartering an AirAsia plane for their season, or Air Asia was readying for some trans-Pacific routes to the United States.

After the plane flew to Oakland for a grand unveiling last week, we had to get to the bottom of the deal. Is Air Asia coming to the United States or what? So we dialed up the Air Asia CEO and mogul Tony Fernandes for a quick rundown of the low-cost carrier's North American plans.

And here's what he said... ]]> JetSetCD 2009-09-21T09:23:56-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/9/14/71630/2039

Despite the return of professional football, we did not have a good weekend. Our favorite team blew it, and apparently fantasy football is not our forte. There’s always next weekend, so we’ll get over it, and for now we’ll focus our football attention towards Air Asia X and their snazzy Oakland Raiders plane. Seeing a big airplane in NFL livery is pretty cool, especially since we’re still secretly hoping that the low cost carrier will announce a plan to serve the US.

We saw the new plane sticking its tail out from the hangar over the summer, but today it’s flying into Oakland to celebrate the start of the season. After all, the Raiders are playing tonight, so the timing is perfect. However, if you head to the team’s website, you’ll see that tonight’s game is being promoted side by side with ads for Hawaiian Airlines. Maybe team officials didn’t get the memo that another airline has honored them with a custom plane. ]]> kjb 2009-09-14T13:24:14-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/6/26/113338/915

Thanks to a lead from a tipster a few months back we heard that Air Asia X was readying one of its planes with an Oakland Raiders logo which led us to think that the no-frills airline would be starting service at OAK soon. But it turned out that it's just a sponsorship.

We got an official release from the Air Asia X folk about the Raiders plane, an Airbus A340 which will be called "Xcellence" as nod to the team's motto "Commitment to Excellence." While the plane will be flown into Oakland on September 14 for the Oakland Raider's kick-off game (for Monday Night Football), there are no plans in place yet for U.S. Air Asia service.

Still, Air Asia will be hosting a 1,000 FREE SEATS online contest in which students will be chosen at random for the opportunity to win free tickets to a Raiders home game. You can visit AirAsia.com or Raiders.com for more info on the contest.

In the meantime, if Air Asia does start U.S. service soon we have a feeling that they wouldn't mind kicking it off in Oakland first.

Related Stories:
· The Oakland Raiders' Air Asia X Plane is Just a 'Commitment to Excellence' [Jaunted]
· Are The Oakland Raiders Getting an A340 Jet Or Just An Air Asia Route? [Jaunted]

[Photo: Andrew/Airliners.Net] ]]> juliana 2009-06-26T13:44:56-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/