AirAsia X plans $1000 Europe to Australia returns
AirAsia X has flagged the possibility of $1000 fares to Europe as Australia’s budget flights battle heats up - with Jetstar in January passing 50 per cent of Qantas domestic traffic for the first time.
The Malaysia-based airline, 20 per cent-owned by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, started flights from the Gold Coast in November and is now eyeing flights through its Kuala Lumpur hub to Europe.
In August last year, Sir Richard announced he would take a 20 per cent stake in AirAsia X, which is majority-owned by management of Air Asia as a franchise of Malaysian-listed AirAsia.
The British entrepreneur has been in Australia this week for various meetings and events, including his attendance at the Virgin Blue charity ball in Brisbane tomorrow night.
Virgin Blue’s majority owner, Toll Holdings, said at its first-half result that it was going through a process to ensure that Virgin Blue’s shareholders were maximising their value.
A report this week suggested Toll had a short list of buyers for its stake, which did not include Virgin. A Toll spokesman declined to comment.
AirAsia X chief executive officer Azran Osman-Rani told discount airline website Peanuts.aero that services from Kuala Lumpur to London Stansted could start by the end of the year, using two leased Airbus A340s.
"We are a point-to-point service, so a passenger would have to buy two tickets: Gold Coast-KL and KL-London," Mr Azran said.
"While we have promotional fares and generally lower fares for bookings far in advance, on average, we are looking at a combined price of $1000 for both round-trip tickets."
AirAsia is currently the biggest customer for the Airbus A320. The airline has placed an order for 175 to service its routes and at least 50 of these will be operational by 2013.
