News From Asia

Richard Maslen February 11, 2011

TIGER AIRWAYS ROARS INTO SOUTH EAST QUEENSLAND

Budget operator Tiger Airways Australia is to expand its network from Sydney, adding flights to Brisbane from February 7 and a daily link to Sunshine Coast from March 27. The Australian carrier launched services from Sydney in July 2009 and has been steadily growing its domestic route network, currently offering links to Melbourne, Adelaide and Gold Coast. Its new service from Sydney to Sunshine Coast, approximately 6miles (10km) north of Maroochydore, will see Tiger compete directly with low-cost rivals JetStar Airways and Virgin Blue. The three airlines already compete on the Melbourne – Sunshine Coast route with JetStar holding a 55 per cent share of the 347,000 passenger O&D market for the year ending November 2010, Virgin Blue having a 22 per cent stake and Tiger Airways 18 per cent. In 2010 more than 450,000 passengers flew between Sydney and the fast growing Sunshine Coast making it the ninth busiest domestic route flown from Sydney Airport.

SRILANKAN LAUNCHES ALL-ECONOMY PRODUCT

Colombo-based SriLankan Airlines has modified one of its fleet of Airbus A320s and configured it with an all-Economy arrangement. The aircraft will be predominantly used on flights into India, where yields are particularly weak and the demand for Business Class limited. According to an initial schedule, the short-haul airliner will be used on ten flights per week to Tiruchirapalli, five-times weekly services to Bangalore and four flights a week to Chennai. SriLankan will also utilise the A320 on some of its flights to Male in the Maldives, a market it dominates in terms of frequency and passenger traffic, but faces tough competition from China Eastern Airlines, Emirates Airline, Oman Air and sister carrier Mihin Lanka.

AIR MACAU MODIFIES REGIONAL SCHEDULES

Air Macau is to make some changes to its network during the next month, increasing flights to the Chinese city of Ningbo but reducing frequencies to Kaohsiung in southwestern Taiwan. From March 1 it will offer a daily service on the Macau – Kaohsiung route - down from nine a week - an O&D market of approximately 415,000 passengers that it competes directly with EVA Air and Trans Asia Airways. This will allow Air Macau to boost capacity to Ningbo from four to five a week, a market where it is the sole operator.

BANGKOK AIRWAYS ENTERS BUSY BANGKOK – MUMBAI MARKET

Thai carrier Bangkok Airways is to inaugurate flights between its Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International base and the Indian city of Mumbai, its first service into the country. The link to Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport will be inaugurated on March 2 and will be operated six-times per week (no service on Tuesdays) using an 120-seat Airbus A319 (12 Business Class and 108 Economy). The route is already served more than 40 times every week by Air India, Cathay Pacific Airways (as an extension), Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines and Thai Airways International, with the latter dominating the market by seat capacity. More than 342,000 O&D passengers travelled between the destinations in the 12 months ending November 2010.

SOUTHEAST ASIAN AIRLINES TO EXPAND OPERATIONS FROM CLARK INTERNATIONAL

Independent Filipino carrier Southeast Asian Airlines (SEAir) is set to expand its activities at Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) after establishing a marketing arrangement with low-cost operator Tiger Airways. The carrier currently offers domestic connections to Boracay, Basco, Batanes and Caticlan but from December 16, 2010 started a twice daily service to Singapore using an Airbus A319 leased from Tiger Airways. Through its partnership with Tiger, SEAir’s flights are being marketed and distributed through Tiger’s Internet booking system and will provide a platform for further growth in the Filipino market. SEAir will now add a further two Airbus models to its fleet on lease from Tiger Airways and these will be used to launch three-times weekly services to Macau from February 14 and a twice daily link to Hong Kong later the same month. Later in the year SEAir plans to serve Bangkok and Cebu too, adding flights to Davao from 2012 and Kuala Lumpur and Taipei from 2013. Many of these routes are already served by Cebu Pacific Airways, which currently has the largest presence at DMIA with almost 3,500 weekly seats, accounting for 40 per cent of the capacity.

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