AirAsia X closes in on Seoul route

AirAsia X is reportedly close to securing new air service to Seoul Incheon.

The long haul arm of AirAsia has reportedly received approval to serve Kuala Lumpur to Seoul Incheon (Business Times April 15).

The route is currently served 7x weekly by Korean Air and 4x weekly by Malaysia Airlines both with A330 equipment. IATA BSP data shows that over 195,000 O+D pax flew the route between Jan 09-10 with the majority of leakage via Hong Kong with Cathay Pacific.

AirAsia X will hope to gain some of this market but also stimulate new traffic with a low cost pricing structure in a market where return yields on average are around 800USD.