Jaunted

Australia and Malaysia Want Open Skies Too

3/10/2008 at 9:20 AM
Tags: Australia Travel, Air Asia X, Virgin Blue, LCCs, Low Cost Carriers, Open Skies (all tags)

Air travel in the Asia-Pacific region is non-stop action at the moment. With Asian LCCs forever threatening to expand and governments chipping away at open skies agreements, it almost feels like we'll be able to fly around Australasia for free in a couple of years.

The news this week is an agreement between the Australian and Malaysian governments to allow more seats on flights between the two countries. Until the announcement, the weekly traffic between Oz and Malaysia was around 35,000 seats, but there are now 5,000 more seats with another 3,500 seats allowed from March 2009.

The expansion is likely to encourage budget airlines like Air Asia X to start more routes to Australia and even compete on the domestic market--there are even rumors that they plan to cooperate with Virgin Blue. We are really hanging out for some cheap flights around this region, so watch this space.

Related Stories:
· Air pact with M'sia allows more seats [The Australian]
· Air Asia X Making X-Tra Small Seats [Jaunted]
· Transpacific Routes Now (Sorta) Open [Jaunted]

[Photo: jetalone]