If you haven't heard by now, you must hate getting stuff for free: AirAsia is giving away 100,000 tickets, but you'll have to fly by the end of March, so don't bother if you're not going to be in Southeast Asia soon, newly serene after recent airport chaos.

It might be a safer trip than a tour of European capitals, after suspicious white powder was found at 15 16 US embassies on the Continent. (It wasn't that kind of white powder.) And researchers have just revealed that a trip to the US Gulf Coast is more likely to kill you than a trip to the Mid-Atlantic. (Blame the hurricanes, not the football fans.)

At least for now in England, that last drink before you die can still be rightly called a pint!

Related Stories:
· 100,000 Free Tickets [AirAsia]
· White Powder Alert at Embassies [CNN]
· Death Map Plots Where Mother Nature Might Kill You [Peter Greenberg]
· Giving Them an Inch, and a Pint [NYT]
· In Defense of Movie Set Travel [WorldHum]

[Photo: AirAsia]]]> pbb 2008-12-17T17:00:32-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/12/7/73941/0276

Thailand... Are we nuts?! Nah: The airport trouble is over, and while politicians keep bickering in Bangkok, the rest of the country is ripe for exploration. Claire Duffett just spent two weeks in southwest Thailand sailing the Andaman Sea from Krabi to Phuket.

When protesters calling for the resignation of Thailand’s prime minister seized Bangkok’s airports for an entire week, I was planning to fly from Phuket to Bangkok then to the United States. Instead, I spent 24 hours riding double-decker buses spray-painted in fluorescent colors. The tension among passengers trying to get home made the rides feel even longer. Wrangling for good seats descended into expletive-laden arguments, and language barriers with the driver turned less gracious passengers into belligerent a-holes.

Still, the beauty of the Andaman’s islands exceeded the suckiness of the journey there. And for those lucky enough to visit the region when it’s not in a state of anarchy, here’s a rundown of how to get there and away:]]> ced138 2008-12-08T13:35:27-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/12/2/14487/0462

Possible further airport hell averted! The latest reports out of Bangkok have it that Suvarnabhumi could be reopen as early as December 5, though other estimates say rebooting BKK could take at least another week or longer.

Don't order your last celebratory bowl of Pad Thai just yet, though: With as many as a few hundred thousand other people clamoring to get out of the country, flights are bound to be the definition of overbooked for days if not weeks. What's the best exit strategy, then? For now, it's the Vietnam-era U-Tapao airfield, a 90-mile drive south of Bangkok, which is currently operating some international flights.

Among the carriers making connections to international airports that won't be total nightmares for the rest of 2008 are AirAsia, Cathay Pacific, Etihad and Malaysia Airlines. AirAsia in particular has lots of flights, including departures to Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Macau, Shenzhen and Singapore.

Related Stories:
· AirAsia "Rescue Flights" [Official Site]
· Bangkok Protests: What to Do if You're in Thailand [Telegraph]
· Bangkok International Airport Still Protest Central [Jaunted]

[Photo: AirAsia]]]> pbb 2008-12-02T15:05:23-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/11/24/51425/843

OK AirAsia, we know you’re one of the few carriers with healthy specs. But we think you might be getting a big ego. First, you offered an on-time guarantee and now your CEO is talking about growing AirAsia X, the company’s Australian subsidiary, tenfold by 2010. That’s faster than when Krispy Kreme suddenly glazed the entire United States in the late '90s.

Both AirAsia X and its Southeast Asian affiliate AirAsia are rapidly buying planes and adding destinations. And as Asian carriers ratcheted up fuel surcharges recently, founder Tony Fernandes scrapped AirAsia’s. Confidence is clearly not a problem for this carrier.

In fact, the one-year-old AirAsia X division will have one billion ringgit ($276 million) in profits by the end of 2009, says CEO Azran Osman Rani. This year’s profits will be about 350 million ringgit.

We’ll tell you if they back up the bluster with a flight review next week: We’re flying AirAsia from Phuket to Bangkok, and we're expecting to be impressed.

Related Stories:
· Malaysia’s AirAsia X Plans to Expand Sales Tenfold [AFP, via Google]
· AirAsia coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: christophe ramos]]]> ced138 2008-11-25T09:15:19-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/10/10/42846/000

AirAsia must be feeling pretty good these days. The Malaysian low cost carrier frequently tops Asia tourism industry lists as the best of its kind. And it certainly lacks modesty, plastering the bragging rights across the sides of planes.

The airline has also grown to be Southeast Asia's largest LCC and plans to add nine new planes in 2009 to its existing fleet of 72. In fact, as tourism in the region picks up, the airline is getting downright cocky about its strength in the marketplace. Economic apocalypse? For AirAsia, life's a bear....]]> ced138 2008-10-13T13:00:44-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/8/4/53631/37328

Air Asia offshoot Air Asia X is not the only airline worried about how heavy planes use more fuel--that's getting more expensive by the second. But they're certainly one of the few airlines who are even vaguely mentioning that heavier passengers might be cheating airlines out of money.

Reports are saying that Air Asia X is considering weighing passengers so they can calculate how much more weight the plane could carry, then filling it up with cargo that pays its way. Since Australians recently became the statistically fattest in the world, the airline has also suggested that charging larger passengers on Australasian routes could "help Aussies lose weight."

Maybe a deal between airlines and Weight Watchers will be the next step?

Related Stories:
· Air Asia X May Charge Passengers by Weight [news.com.au]
· Aussie Airlines Ponder Weight-Loss Plans [Jaunted]
· Air Asia X Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Steffe]]]> amandak 2008-08-04T09:00:04-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2008/7/31/816/62104

Chief of Air Asia, the enigmatic can-do man Tony Fernandes, promised us earlier in the year that we'd be able to take a budget flight all the way from Australia to London by Christmas this year. But the bad news is there's a delay on these flights starting up.

The good news is that they still will get off the ground, despite rising fuel costs. Brave Fernandes reckons that "one of the best times to expand is during a period of flux" and the only reason they're not flying the route already is a difficulty in getting hold of the right aircraft.

Air Asia is in the final stages of talks with London Stansted airport and Fernandes says the budget London-Australia route (via Malaysia) will be operating by June 2009 at the latest--and maybe as early as March. We're not sure about having to buy our own food all that way, but if the prices really go as low as $700 then we really won't care.

Related Stories:
· Air Asia to Go Ahead with London-Malaysia Launch [Business Traveller]
· All We Want for Christmas is Long, Cheap Flights [Jaunted]

[Photo: jetalone]]]> amandak 2008-07-31T09:15:33-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/