AirAsia celebrates 500 million passenger milestone
Budget airline group AirAsia recently celebrated a new milestone with its 500 millionth passenger.
Thai national Dr Panut Oprasertsawat became the lucky recipient as the milestone passenger when he flew from Phuket to Bangkok and bagged three million AirAsia BIG points along with free flights.
"We started in 2001 with just two planes and 200 Allstars in Malaysia and carried 200,000 guests. Today, we have more than 200 planes, over 20,000 Allstars of 50 different nationalities and half a billion guests, 60% of which were first time flyers," said AirAsia Group CEO Tony Fernandes.
The airline now serves 130 destinations.
Fernandes was also bullish on short term earnings despite ever rising oil prices.
Citing its ‘strong ancillary income machine,’ he said the airline can weather the storm and even when oil prices last reached $100, the company still turned a profit.
"We will live through this as we have done in other oil price hikes," he said.
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Editor for TravelMole North America and Asia pacific regions. Ray is a highly experienced (15+ years) skilled journalist and editor predominantly in travel, hospitality and lifestyle working with a huge number of major market-leading brands. He has also cover in-depth news, interviews and features in general business, finance, tech and geopolitical issues for a select few major news outlets and publishers.
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