SEPANG: Medium-haul low-cost airline AirAsia X Bhd
plans to make the Central Asian region the main focus of its flight network expansion, supported by the high potential market demand.
Chief executive officer Benyamin Ismail said that so far the company has started flights to Almaty, Kazakhstan, since March last year, and Tashkent, Uzbekistan, starting this October.
“The Central Asian market is still underserved.
“For example, Almaty, if there was no AirAsia X, it would take 18 hours to get there. But with AirAsia X, it will only take eight hours.
“I think the focus is on this region, we have started from Almaty and we have another route that we are developing.
“We are looking at Turkiye, Azerbaijan and other Central Asia countries and hopefully, this will be a platform for us to Europe,” he told the media after the launch of the airline’s new route to Tashkent yesterday.
According to Benyamin, Central Asia not only offers the attraction of lower tourism costs, but also has interesting historical and Islamic cultural values for the Malaysian market.
He said the launch of the Kuala Lumpur-Tashkent route was a strategic milestone in AirAsia X’s efforts to expand across Asia and beyond.
“We have seen a significant increase in tourism demand to Central Asia following the impressive performance of the Almaty route,” he added. — Bernama
