KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia X Bhd, the long-haul low-cost subsidiary airline of Capital A Bhd, is relooking at its plans to fly to its first Central Asia destination, Kazakhstan.
Founder of the carrier and executive chairman of Capital A, Datuk Kamarudin Meranun said AirAsia X would be having a meeting in Kazakhstan's largest city Almaty to resume the discussions with the local authorities.
"We had numerous meetings in Almaty and (the capital) Nur-Sultan, and we had serious negotiations with the government. We are aware that there are a lot of changes in Kazakhstan. We are revisiting it (flying to Almaty).
"In fact, I will fly to Almaty to meet the government (representatives) and to revisit the discussions that we had. Hopefully, we'll get some positive news," he said at a press conference after the launch of AirAsia X's new international destinations today.
AirAsia X chief executive officer Benyamin Ismail said the airline had submitted its wish list to Kazakhstan to allow them to exercise its fifth freedom flight from the Almaty to other destinations.
"We want to fly to Almaty but because there is a local carrier there as well and they're not allowing us to do fifth freedom (flight) from Almaty. It has to be from a smaller city in Kazakhstan. But that's our wish list and they (Kazakhstan) are still considering that.
"Of course, we want to go to Central Asia but it has to be commercially viable for it to happen," he said.
The New Straits Times reported in 2019 that AirAsia X held discussions with key people in Kazakhstan, including the chairman of Kazakhstan's Civil Aviation Committee, Talgat Lastayev to introduce a direct flight from Kuala Lumpur to Almaty.
The plan was to use Almaty as a hub for the airline to fly to other destinations such as the U.S. and Europe.
Fifth freedom flight is the right for a foreign airline to be able to fly to another country from a destination that is not its home base.
Currently, the local airlines in Kazakhstan include national carrier, Air Astana, FlyArystan, which is a low-cost unit of Air Astana, SCAT Airlines and Qazaq Air.
Meanwhile, AirAsia X announced the addition of three new destinations in its international network, which are London, Dubai and Istanbul, as well as the launch of four new routes to Japan and Hawaii.
The routes include from Kuala Lumpur to New Delhi, Sydney, Seoul (Incheon), Tokyo (Haneda), Sapporo (Chitose), Osaka (Kansai) and from Osaka to Honolulu.
All of the routes are on sale from yesterday (today) until June 26 2022 for travel between July 1 2022 to March 26 2023, starting from RM499 (all-in fare for one-way) for economy seats and from RM1499 for a premium flatbed.
Benyamin said the ticket sale for London, Dubai and Istanbul flights would be opened soon as the airline was awaiting the green light from the authorities in the three cities to start operations.
"The return to London and first-time direct flights to Dubai and Istanbul will be a gamechanger for great long-haul travel…Our strategic new model, combining cargo and passengers enable AirAsia X to fly profitably, which makes operations to longer-haul routes commercially viable and more affordable for our guests," he added.
Benyamin also said that AirAsia X was looking to operate 15 of its A330ceo (current engine option) by year-end.
Currently, the airline is flying six aircraft in operation.