AirAsiaX to continue Sydney push
KUALA LUMPUR – AirAsia X chief executive Azran Osman-Rani says he will continue to push for flights between KL and Sydney despite objections from the Malaysian government.
The airline has not received an official notification on why there has been a delay in receiving approvals for Sydney flights but there has been a lot of speculation.
"One of the reasons cited was since MAS (Malaysia Airlines) was asked to buy the A380 jets by the government, they need the Sydney route to be protected," said Azran.
"Allegedly, we are also only bringing in transit passengers (to Malaysia). However, tourist arrivals from Australia grew by 25 per cent last year in comparison to the previous year based on the tourism ministry data.
"MAS did not add a single flight into Australia last year but instead cut capacity. So how do you get such a stellar growth?" Azran told the Business Times.
"We are continuing to take new aircraft (three A330s this year), with another 17 coming in from 2011 to 2015, but don’t have the right places to deploy them," he said.
MAS, which will start receiving the first of its six A380s starting August next year, has said that it will use two of these planes for its KL-Sydney route.
Ian Jarrett
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