Low Cost Airlines Looking Forward to more Cheap Flights ot Asian & Australian Market

Add caption

AUSTRALIAN TRAVELERS  can look forward to more cheap flights to Asia as low-cost carriers expand across the region. Aviation experts believe low-cost Indonesian airline Lion Air will launch flights to Australia in the next few years, while Malaysian airline AirAsia X has plans to double its flights to and from Australia.
Center for Asia Pacific Aviation executive chairman said low-cost carriers will dominate long-haul travel in Asia by the end of the decade and he would be surprised if Lion Air wasn't flying to Australia by then.  "A lot of these aircraft can also fly pretty long distances," he told the CAPA Australia Pacific Asia Summit in Sydney.  He said by the end of this year AirAsia X will be the fourth largest foreign airline in Australia.  The carrier flies from Sydney, Melbourne, the Gold Coast and Perth, providing links to Asian hot spots such as Bali and Phuket via its Kuala Lumpur hub.

AirAsia X CEO said the airline was planning to double the frequency of its flights to and from Australia by next year.  "Australia is a third of our business," he said.  Australians may also have the choice of more stopover destinations in Asia en route to Europe, with Bandung in Indonesia potentially becoming a new hub in addition to Chinese cities including Guangzhou, where up-and-coming carrier China Southern is based.
But Asia faces strong competition from Middle Eastern carriers Emirates and Eithad Airways.
Emirates began a partnership with Qantas earlier this year, with flights to Europe with the Australian carrier now going via Dubai instead of Singapore as they did under its longstanding relationship with Singapore Airlines.  Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, which has a partnership with Virgin Australia, has also revealed ambitious plans to begin flights from Perth, boost flights from Melbourne and Brisbane and fly an Airbus A380 aircraft from Sydney and Melbourne.  It will also build premium lounges at Sydney and Melbourne Airports next year.  The growth in airlines coming Down Under was also good news for Australian tourism.
"We're an island nation and not a lot of people swim here," Tourism Australian managing director Andrew McEvoy told the summit.  Mr McEvoy said the growth of low-cost carriers in the region had been "phenomenal".  "It's been dominated by Jetstar but AirAsia has come in quite aggressively," he said.
"Lion Air and those sorts of carriers are also looking at Australia very, very closely.
"A lot of the capacity from Australia has been to Bali but we're seeing real growth from Jakarta. "I think Jakarta has ambitions to be a kind of hub to Europe as well over time. " Overall, Mr Harbison said airfares were likely to stay low thanks to the falling Australian dollar.