Tag: air asia View All Tags
Tags: Free Stuff / Air Asia / Air Asia X / Asia Travel / Airfare Deals / Malaysia Travel / → All Tags
Air Asia Just Put A Million Free Tickets Up For Grabs
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.
Tags: Airplane News / Airline News / Air Asia / Air Asia X / LCCs / Budget Travel / Travel With Children / → All Tags
Baby Born On Air Asia Plane Gets Free Flights For Life
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]
Tags: Airfare Sales / Air Asia / LCCs / Budget Travel / Asia Travel / Travel Deals / → All Tags
Air Asia's Big Sale Makes Us Want To Book Some $17 Flights
One of our favorite low cost carriers, Air Asia, is not just cool because it keeps adding more routes—like Kuala Lumpur to Paris on the cheap and the Indian destinations like Thiruvananthapuram just to name a couple of last week's highlights—but it's also giving us ideas for our 2010 travel plans by holding a big airfare sale at the moment.
For bookings made between now and Sunday, you can get bargain tickets for travel between January 11 and April 30, 2010 for a bunch of Asian routes. The cheapest flights get as low as 19 Ringgit ($5.50) but they're mostly internal Malaysian flights; to get from Kuala Lumpur to further afield, there are deals like KL to pretty much anywhere in Indonesia or Thailand for 59 Ringgit ($17) and KL to Australian destinations for 199 Ringgit ($58). Get booking fast or we might snap up all the seats first.
Related Stories:
· Air Asia [Official Site]
· Let's Go Thiruvananthapuram! [Jaunted]
· Sarkozy Approves Air Asia X's Low-Cost Flights to Paris [Jaunted]
[Photo: Auswandern Malaysia]
Tags: New Routes / Asia Travel / Air Asia / India Travel / → All Tags
Let's Go Thiruvananthapuram! Asian Airlines Loving India Right Now
While we're busy being happy for the winner of the CN Traveler Awards, plenty of other airlines around the world have news of their own, and mainly in the new routes area. For those of you chilling around Asia like our own Claire Duffett, here's the need-to-know new routes coming your way:
· Air Asia begins low-cost direct flights from their base in Kuala Lumpur to Calcutta, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum) in India in November. One-way flights (including tax) begin as low as $32, and these new routes compliment Air Asia's current India destination of Trichy, effectively quadrupling their Indian routes.
Tags: Air Asia / Air Asia X / LCCs / Budget Travel / Nicolas Sarkozy / New Routes / → All Tags
Sarkozy Approves Air Asia X's Low-Cost Flights To Paris
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]
Tags: Jaunted Interviews / Tony Fernandes / Kuala Lumpur Travel / Malaysia Travel / Air Asia X / OAK / Air Asia / LCCs / Airline News / → All Tags
Talking With Air Asia's CEO Tony Fernandes About US Plans
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...
Tags: Travel News Briefs / Shamrock Seeds / Dhani Jones / Kayak / iPhone Applications / Air Asia / → All Tags
Luck of the Irish Fails Shamrock Seeds at Dulles Airport
With so much travel news raining down on us, we don't always have time to give every story its own forecast. Here's more of the day's news, in brief.
· Where's Your Lucky Leprechaun When You Need Him?: Just days before St. Paddy's Day, feds targeted an Aer Lingus flight arriving in DC and shook down passengers to find prohibited meat and SHAMROCK SEEDS. Yes, it is illegal to bring shamrock seeds over from Ireland. But those FBI t-shirts (Full Blooded Irish) are totally fine. [MSNBC]
· Move Over, Playboy Bunny: A new TV show premieres on the Travel Channel tonight--"Dhani Tackles the Globe." Tune in at 9pm to watch NFL lineback Dhani Jones explore the world through sports. [Travel Channel]
· Kayak Gets an iPhone App: While we haven't been quite thrilled with the iPhone travel apps put forth so far, Kayak has gotten in on the game with its airfare application. [CNET]
· Someone Else Flew Air Asia X Too: Maxton Walker of the UK's Guardian offers up his take on the flight from London to Kuala Lumpur which our own Julia Buckley also experienced here. [Guardian]
[Photo: Xanovsky]
Tags: First-Person Flight Reviews / Air Asia X / LCCs / Air Asia / Travel Videos / → All Tags
Inside The No-Frills, Long-Haul Flight on Air Asia X
As regular Ryanair self-abusers know, the world’s first long-haul, "no frills" flight is not a concept that particularly fills us with longing. But Air Asia X’s launch sent prices from London to the Far East plummeting when booking opened last November, so we were intrigued. But would people really put up with no frills on a 13 hour flight? We turned reluctant guinea pig to find out.
A quick admission to start with. We were originally told that this was the inaugural flight to KL. Except when we got to the Air Asia launch party the night before, we realised it wasn’t – the first flight was taking off as we listened to The Saturdays. However, with the glitches we experienced on day two, we’re kind of glad we didn’t catch the first one.
Tags: Party Report / Air Asia X / Air Asia / LCCs / Tony Fernandes / → All Tags
Air Asia X Launches Low-Cost, Long-Haul Service
Our London correspondent Julia Buckley is riding on the inaugural Air Asia X flight as we speak. We'll have that flight review for you later but check-out all that happened at the launch party below. Enjoy.
Air Asia X had the weather on their side yesterday when the first-ever no-frills long-haul flight touched down at Stansted. Amazingly there was no rain, but rather sun, a clear sky, and even a prince (only Andrew, unfortunately) to welcome the inaugural flight from Kuala Lumpur to London.
The flight was even 25 minutes early, so everyone was in celebratory form for the launch party at Altitude 360, on the 29th floor of the Millbank Tower, which looks down the Thames past the Houses of Parliament, London Eye and over to St Pauls and the Gherkin. The views were incredible – although most people were tucking into the free-flowing drinks rather than looking outside. Those who did, though, were rewarded by strobe lights swirling the red Air Asia logo around on the building on the other side of the river.
Tags: Air Asia / Tony Fernandes / Airports / International Airports / → All Tags
AirAsia Growing So Much It Deserves Its Own Airport
What do you do if your low-cost airline finds the local airport simply too crowded for your liking? Well, if you have the confidence of Tony Fernandes and you're in charge of always-growing AirAsia, you just decide to build your own airport.
AirAsia has plans to build an exclusive-use airport in Kuala Lumpur, closer to downtown than the main airport and ready to fly 30 million AirAsia passengers around annually from March 2011. Tony Fernandes reckons this will cut AirAsia’s costs by 30% and bring down ticket prices even more.
Enter the Malaysian government. Although they approved this airport before, the rumor now is that they will backtrack on the agreement and tell AirAsia to live with the normal airports instead. Pretty safe bet that Tony Fernandes isn't at all impressed with that. And if it means losing our cheaper fares, neither are we.
Related Stories:
· AirAsia Braces Itself For KL Backtrack [AsiaOne]
· AirAsia Unveils Plans for Own Airport [AFP]
· AirAsia’s Grown Uninhibited By Its Narcissism [Jaunted]
[Photo: JasonDGreat]
Tags: Malaysia Airlines / Air Asia X / Air Asia / → All Tags
We Missed Malaysia Airlines Missing "1"
Since we mentioned that Malaysia Airlines has great customer service, we've let them drift off our radar a bit in favor of upstart Malaysian LCC Air Asia, with its promises to spirit us across the whole world for nearly nothing.
And that's a pity, because if we'd been paying more attention to long-term good performer Malaysia Airlines, we might have picked up a really special deal recently: An error was made when uploading prices to the computer system, and the cost of a business class flight from Bangkok to Johannesburg was listed as 11,580 Thai Baht instead of 111,580.
That missing "1" made about US$3,500 difference to the price, and those in the know snapped up bargain-priced business class deals for under $400. Malaysia Airlines has now corrected the error but will honor the tickets bought at the cheaper rate. We just wish it had been us.
Related Stories:
· Pricing Error for Malaysia Airlines [eTravel]
· Malaysia Airlines Heart All Passengers [Jaunted]
[Photo: JanneM]
