AirAsia X officially takes to the skies today at 9.40pm and its first international route is to the Gold Coast in Australia.
The approval to fly to the Australian premier tourist destination, which includes an international licence, was given by the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) just two days ago.
According to AirAsia X chief executive office Azran Osman Rani, getting the clearance from Australia had not been easy because the country has very high safety and operational standards for airlines.
“But we are ready to fly now as the international licence from CASA is ready. The load factor for our maiden flight is 96%, of which 90% are paying passengers. The Gold Coast is an ideal choice as AirAsia X’s first destination. Gold Coast will be a definite hit with Malaysian travellers and we are keen to position Gold Coast as the gateway to Australia.”
When unveiling this destination on 28 Sep 2007, he had announced that the first eight flights from the KLIA-LCCT in Sepang to Coolangatta Airport in Gold Coast would cost about 30% less than the cheapest fare available on other airlines for tickets to Australia.
Azran said that of the more than 6,000 bookings for the promotional flights, 4,000 were direct bookings by passengers via the Internet and 2,100 by travel agents on behalf of their customers. Until yesterday, the low-cost, long-haul airline has had over 20,000 confirmed bookings worth RM15 million.
There are four weekly direct return flights and each flight has a capacity of 279 passengers in the economy class and 36 in premium XL seats.
Air Asia X presently leases an Airbus A330-300 aircraft while its purchases of 15 new Airbus A330s will be delivered over five years starting from Sep 2008. It is looking at other destinations like Amritsar in India and further afield to London or Manchester.
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