KUCHING, Nov 27: AirAsia will increase its flight frequency to Sarawak with an additional 42 weekly flights from Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah for a limited period from Dec 4 to Jan 5, 2022.
AirAsia Malaysia chief executive officer Riad Asmat in a press statement today said the airline has today received confirmation from the Ministry of Transport Sarawak (MOTS) and the State Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) for an additional weekly flights, which has brought the fares down from around RM1,000 to below RM200 for a Kuala Lumpur to Kuching flight.
“We would like to express our sincere appreciation to SDMC and MOTS for the additional flight approval for the Christmas holiday season.
“However, we would like to appeal to MOTS and SDMC to also approve our request for extra Chinese New Year flights, and to remove frequency restrictions on all the approved flights entirely to enable us to better manage cost efficiency and lower the fares for passengers,” he said.
Riad noted that AirAsia is always committed to providing affordable fares and value for money, but the inability to scale up its supply to meet the demand due to the flight restrictions has hampered the airline’s ability to continue to offer lower, affordable fares.
“AirAsia has always pledged our full commitment and support towards the full reopening and resumption of travel and tourism activities in Sarawak as well as looking forward to continuing to work closely with all relevant regulators, the Federal and State governments, civil aviation and health authorities, and tourism bodies to ensure the highest standards of compliance and conformance are in place for every single flight that we operate.” he added.
He pointed out that AirAsia’s operation is all about economies of scale, where they need to achieve a high passenger volume so that costs can be spread among a sizable number of passengers, allowing them to offer travelers low fares and giving them great value for money.
“AirAsia’s pricing model is similar to other airlines the world over and is based on supply and demand.
“In abiding with the limited flight frequencies imposed by the SDMC resulting in a reduced supply of flight seats, AirAsia’s demand-based dynamic pricing mechanism has inevitably derived prices seen as unfavorable to buyers at this time,” he explained. — DayakDaily
