AirAsia X: Tourism boost from direct flights to Seoul

AirAsia X, the long haul, low fare affiliate of AirAsia sets a new sales record with its newly launched destination to Seoul recently with all in fares from as low as KRW 60,000 (from Seoul) and RM 99 (from Kuala Lumpur) for bookings from 4 to 8th August, 2010.

The airline portal created waves with over 80,000 seats snapped up, generating over RM 20 million in sales during this period surpassing popular introductory sales of London, Melbourne, and Taipei. The sale has broken all records from AirAsia X previous new route launches.

The new Kuala Lumpur – Seoul route which will commence services on 1st November, 2010 onwards, is AirAsia X’s eleventh destination after Australia, India, Taiwan, China and Europe.

AirAsia X Chief Executive Officer, Azran Osman-Rani lauded the achievement, “This is amazing news. We are heartened by this record-breaking result, and are thrilled to deliver a new surge in tourist arrivals into Malaysia with the confidence given to us by the Malaysian government who approved our application to fly to Seoul-Incheon International airport. It’s remarkable that we are setting new records in less than a week after we announced our new destination to Seoul on 2nd August, 2010. Following the footsteps of AirAsia, AirAsia X is blazing new trails, and revolutionizing the way travel plans are made. With over 132 routes to 70 hot destinations, guests may hop on our long haul network to Kuala Lumpur and continue their holidays for a beach getaway or an adventurous trail across ASEAN and beyond.”

“We are confident that the new Seoul route will also deliver strong new passenger traffic similar to the significant growth rates we recorded on the Melbourne, Perth and London routes which grew by 41%, 66% and 31% respectively in 2009 as well as the strong growth in inbound tourist arrivals into Malaysia from Australia, China and UK, the second, third and fourth largest growth in tourist arrivals in 2009 after Singapore. AirAsia X expects over 100,000 passengers’ arrivals on its daily Seoul service in the first 12 months of operations. In 2009, Korean tourist arrivals into Malaysia were 227,312, a 15% decline compared to 2008.”

“AirAsia X received overwhelming interest from the Korean public, who were keen to take advantage of the low fares to travel to Malaysia during the cold winter climate to enjoy a tropical holiday. Alternatively, guests from Malaysia and the surrounding region will be able to enjoy Korea during the winter season and opt for a skiing holiday as there are many ski resorts in Korea. AirAsia X in collaboration with Korea Tourism Organization as well as Tourism Malaysia, will launch targeted retail campaigns as well as offer packages to travel agents to further entice guests from Korea to fly to Malaysia and vice versa. The launch of the new route created an internet frenzy on the AirAsia.com website recently,” concluded Azran.

The AirAsia web site – www.airasia.com had registered more than 13,000,000 (13 MILLION) hits in the first 24 hours of the campaign. The success of the campaign is attributed to the power of our blog and social network platform with over 410,000 Facebook followers and more than 30,000 Twitter followers.

*Promo Fares include airport taxes and government tax.

Flights and fares are subject to availability and are for one way travel only.

FLIGHT SCHEDULE FOR KUALA LUMPUR- SEOUL, KOREA

Flights From Departure/ Arrival Flight No. Frequency

Kuala Lumpur to Seoul 13:55 / 21:15 D7 2682 Daily

Seoul to Kuala Lumpur 23:20 / 05:05 D7 2683 Daily