New Phuket Flights

[Marksamui]

JetStar are to resume their Phuket to Singapore flights twice daily, 7 days a week from Mid December!

HappyAir are launching a Phuket to Hat Yai daily flight sometime in November.....

Anymore new flights added that anyone knows about?

Also I must add that there has been a considerable cleanup and ongoing improvements to Phuket International Airport. Ok it still has along way to go but it is starting. Depatures has more small resturants etc. and on arrival they have clapmed down on the touts a little. Plently of room for improvement but at lease it is starting to move in the right direction....

[steelepulse]

Airasia now flying direct to Hong Kong.

[phuketrex]

AirAsia will introduce daily flights from Phuket to Jakarta and to Hong Kong from about mid-November. Daily services to Ho Chi Minh City and Medan will start a month later, said chief executive Tassapon Bijleveld.

The airline will station two A320 jetliners, each capable of carrying 180 passengers, at Phuket International Airport and will set up a crew centre and an aircraft maintenance support base there.

[gaby]

AirAsia will introduce daily flights from Phuket to Jakarta and to Hong Kong from about mid-November. Daily services to Ho Chi Minh City and Medan will start a month later, said chief executive Tassapon Bijleveld.

The airline will station two A320 jetliners, each capable of carrying 180 passengers, at Phuket International Airport and will set up a crew centre and an aircraft maintenance support base there.

"MALAYSIAN BUSINESS" magazine, 16th-30th sept. 2009, claims the AIRASIA IS IN DIRE STRAIGHTS FINANCIALLY.

ARE THE PLANES NEW?

ARE THE MAINTENANCE STAFF ON PAR WITH OTHER AIRLINES OR ARE THEY LIKE THE SLOPPY "LIONS AIR" of Indonesia that keeps crashing?

also , has AIRASIA SOLVED their tricky on-line bookings and answered all the unanswered web queries to them - especially those on hiked-up prices and wrong flight dates and times in their final on-line bookings and "stolen" private data when booking on-line???????

or can those be answered here for transparency sake?

yes, am aware AIRASIA 's future future bookings can be done through a new agent , but what about past threads here in TV asking for honest and no-nonsense replies to many feedback which are still unanswered .

is AIRASIA going the way of the dinosaurs with all the world's NON-NATIONAL low budget airlines which are proving to be to be risky to fly with?

what's the use of a crew centre if staff are not properly trained for the job?

CAN AIRASIA PROMOTERS PLEASE ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS .

[steelepulse]

If airasia doesn't answer their call centre, why on earth would they answer these questions in a thread on a phuket forum?

[katabeachbum]

also , has AIRASIA SOLVED their tricky on-line bookings and answered all the unanswered web queries to them - especially those on hiked-up prices and wrong flight dates and times in their final on-line bookings and "stolen" private data when booking on-line???????

I book Air Asia online 5-10 times a year (for some years now) for roundtrips from Phuket, and I dont have the same experience as you have. Guess I m just lucky

[LivinginKata]

I book Air Asia online 5-10 times a year (for some years now) for roundtrips from Phuket, and I dont have the same experience as you have. Guess I m just lucky

I second that.

Never had a problem booking through their web site, good prices, flights have always left on time (in fact usually 10 minutes early), planes seem to be in good condition as fas as I can see, flights usually near full. All in all, I see a Air Asia doing quite well.

[Old Croc]

My biggest problem with Air Asia is the scheduling of flights to and from Phuket.

Thje one flight a day from Perth to KL arrives about 20 minutes before a link to Phuket leaves. Not enough time to get processed and check-in to the flight. The next one is about 8 hours later. There is a similar situation on the return sector. A deal breaker for me.

[phuketrex]

...and even more direct flights coming...and going

Thai AirAsia intends to open more routes connecting Phuket directly with other Asian cities as it moves aggressively to develop its second hub on the southern resort island.

The no-frills carrier wants to link Phuket with Bali, Surabaya, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Manila through non-stop services as new city-pairs after the first links due to open in mid-November.

Chief executive Tassapon Bijleveld said the airline was upbeat about the growth opportunities Phuket could provide in addition to its main hub at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport.

Thai AirAsia is preparing to begin daily services on the Phuket-Hong Kong and Phuket-Jakarta routes on Nov 15, followed by flights from Phuket to Chiang Mai, Medan in Indonesia and Ho Chi Minh City in December.

Pending positive results, Mr Tassapon said the second set of direct air links with Asian cities could open in 18 months

"We need three or four months to prove that our decision to make Phuket our second hub is right commercially before we make further stride," he said.

"We could easily fly in 2,000 tourists a day from those foreign cities to Phuket, ramping up from 600 people a day initially we expect from the first batch of cities."

That means Thai AirAsia would need to base four A320 jetliners at Phuket to accommodate the direct connections, up from the two that it will station there in the next one or two months.

The sister carrier of Malaysia-based AirAsia, Asia's largest budget carrier, is also looking at other airports in Thailand including Chiang Mai, Udon Thani and U-tapao as potential hubs for new flight markets.

Chiang Mai is the most likely candidate for a third hub but Mr Tassapon stressed that the bulk of Thai AirAsia's services would continue through Suvarnabhumi.

"The problem is that we cannot open as many new routes through Suvarnabhumi as we wanted to as the network through Bangkok has thickened already," he explained, adding that the airline's fleet had also been growing and needed new routes to match it.

The airline now operates a fleet of ten Airbus A320s and six Boeing B737- 300s. Over the next two months it will take delivery of two new A320s. Next year it will receive eight more A320s and retire its six B737-300s, giving it a fleet of 20 aircraft, all A320s.

[phuketkenny]

I book Air Asia online 5-10 times a year (for some years now) for roundtrips from Phuket, and I dont have the same experience as you have. Guess I m just lucky

I second that.

Never had a problem booking through their web site, good prices, flights have always left on time (in fact usually 10 minutes early), planes seem to be in good condition as fas as I can see, flights usually near full. All in all, I see a Air Asia doing quite well.

Mixed emotions. Love them, hate them. Like the price, hate the service. I will be tempted by the new direct to HK options. Web site works fine.

Edited October 14, 2009 by phuketkenny

[loveitto]

I book Air Asia online 5-10 times a year (for some years now) for roundtrips from Phuket, and I dont have the same experience as you have. Guess I m just lucky

I second that.

Never had a problem booking through their web site, good prices, flights have always left on time (in fact usually 10 minutes early), planes seem to be in good condition as fas as I can see, flights usually near full. All in all, I see a Air Asia doing quite well.'

I agree with comments on web site,prices are good if you book ahead,and mostly leave on time,and their fleet is constantly being updated with brand new aircraft.

However your comment.."the planes seem to be in good condition,as far as i can see''.. is totally devoid of any relevance.Have you perused their maintenance schedules? Have you any idea on the complexities of aircraft operations? Bright and shiny is in no way related to the main concerns...don't judge a book by its cover.Thats all, you, as a passenger see...the cover, inside and out..nice and clean.

Even from new there is a sophisticated and dedicated regime from not only the manufacturers, but also from Civil Aviation Depts,on regular upgrades and additions that must be stingently adhered to for both safety and performance issues.

World wide,with even the biggest and best companies, falseifying documentation and failing to comply with regs is a major problem,but budget airlines are far worse at this and Asian ones even more so.Air Asia is better than most at present because of its realitively low hours fleet, but as they age and therefore costs increase to maintain airworthiness, they definately will still look in good condition, but ,as far as you can't look..who knows what is going on.?

You are also entitled to your opinion that you see Air Asia doing quite well...once again every single airline in the world is in financial hardship and struggling so why should air asia be any different/ if the facts be known as per a previous poster....They are in fact not doing so well! Sorry to say.

[KarenBravo]

once again every single airline in the world is in financial hardship and struggling so why should air asia be any different/

Not true.

Southwest Airlines in the States and Ryanair in Europe are still making profits.

Is it a coincidence that they too, like Air Asia, are "budget" airlines with similar business practices?

[LivinginKata]

However your comment.."the planes seem to be in good condition,as far as i can see''.. is totally devoid of any relevance.Have you perused their maintenance schedules? Have you any idea on the complexities of aircraft operations? Bright and shiny is in no way related to the main concerns...don't judge a book by its cover.Thats all, you, as a passenger see...the cover, inside and out..nice and clean.

Of course I have not 'perused their maintenance schedules'. That's why I phrased it 'as far as I can see'. At least Air Asia aircraft look 'bright & shiny' compared with some of the 'tired' aircraft of other budget airlines I have observed at various airports.

I'm just like most air travellers, I want a company that departs on time, the price is right, and has a decent safety record. I'll let a government or international authority worry about the maintenance schedule.

[Marksamui]

once again every single airline in the world is in financial hardship and struggling so why should air asia be any different/

Not true.

Southwest Airlines in the States and Ryanair in Europe are still making profits.

Is it a coincidence that they too, like Air Asia, are "budget" airlines with similar business practices?

Actually it is probably more to do with the fact that they have all had decent hedge strategy with regards to their fuel requirements. Something which 2 years ago was not the case for Air Asia....

[loveitto]

once again every single airline in the world is in financial hardship and struggling so why should air asia be any different/

Not true.

Southwest Airlines in the States and Ryanair in Europe are still making profits.

Is it a coincidence that they too, like Air Asia, are "budget" airlines with similar business practices?

Hi KB..out of the many hundreds of airlines in the world you only come up with two, that in your opinion are making profits...so my point is valid. Also see as follows, maybe you should only comment on things you understand.. Google confirms the following;

Ryanair,europes most profitable airline is running into losses for the first time since 1997...

Once relentlessly profitable Southwest Airlines reported its third-consecutive loss..

You are only nitpicking in the overall picture by bringing this up, and if you reflect you will see that my original post is quite correct and factual.

As a retired pilot i have no quarms flying airasia,as their new fleet eliminates many of the dangers of flying on older [in need of more costly maintenance]fleets.

The fact is undesputable..Budget airlines can only make profits by cutting costs..unfortunately the biggest costs after fuel is maintenance...so??

Also asian airlines are well documented unfortunately for ''cutting corners''..i'm not saying that Airasia do so, but it is a business and in hard times all businesses need to reduce costs by whatever means to remain viable...

[loveitto]

However your comment.."the planes seem to be in good condition,as far as i can see''.. is totally devoid of any relevance.Have you perused their maintenance schedules? Have you any idea on the complexities of aircraft operations? Bright and shiny is in no way related to the main concerns...don't judge a book by its cover.Thats all, you, as a passenger see...the cover, inside and out..nice and clean.

Of course I have not 'perused their maintenance schedules'. That's why I phrased it 'as far as I can see'. At least Air Asia aircraft look 'bright & shiny' compared with some of the 'tired' aircraft of other budget airlines I have observed at various airports.

I'm just like most air travellers, I want a company that departs on time, the price is right, and has a decent safety record. I'll let a government or international authority worry about the maintenance schedule.

I agree with you..on all points as above and Airasia meets those criteria most of the time but also note they are a 'fledging ''airline, not much time to have a decent safety record yet,as most incidents are related to accumulated hours but as far as i know at this point of time their record is very good.

But if you really think that bright and shiny[ in fact "bright and shiny '"fuselage not only looks good but more than pays for itself in reduced drag and therefor reduced fuel consumption] relates at all to the major issue[safety and proper maintenance] with all airlines, but especially budget and more so, Asian budget carriers and you really believe the government or the authorities actually can take care of these issues you are mistaken big time.

The aviation safety industry has self regulated for a long while.I'm sure you understand the implications of that..or do you? With all the pressure to maximise profits, downtime, ie maintenance and repairs is cut to the barest minimums and this is where mistakes occur and shortcuts are taken.

Hey i'm just pointing out the known facts about aviation industry, and i sincerely hope that Airasia continues to grow and be safe, as i use them a lot..but budget means just that, with all the known implications and as history has shown..regards incidents..its only a matter of time..

[expatdiane]

I frequently fly airasia all over S E Asia and generally have had no problems at all,except a few weeks back the website was playing up.Sometimes i've found that on Phuket/bangkok and the flight is not full enough, you receive a SM advising you that you now have to wait for a later flight which can be frustrating at times of urgency. You do get what you pay for.

Regarding Phuket Airport -yes it has been improved tremendously,but still needs more if future predictions of increased traffic are correct,and Airasia making it a hub can only maybe add to the congestion if infastructure is not increased first.

One other thing on safety issues is this;

With a big mixture of races in aircrews, many of which do not have a great english speaking/understanding ability,or also have strong accents, there is an increased risk of miscommunication between pilots together and/or more importantly between pilot and ground staff.

Edited October 16, 2009 by expatdiane

[khunjake]

Overall my flying experiences with AirAsia have been quite good. Have made flights to BKK, HKG, PNH and KUL and all went great. I really can't imagine how flights to/from Medan and Surabaya are gonna work out but I can see the chinese ones will likely do very well. The chinese tourists seem to be Thailand's preferred tourist as they come for a week, drop their RMB into Baht, blow it all, leave and then never think twice about staying here permanently

[loveitto]

once again every single airline in the world is in financial hardship and struggling so why should air asia be any different/

Not true.

Southwest Airlines in the States and Ryanair in Europe are still making profits.

Is it a coincidence that they too, like Air Asia, are "budget" airlines with similar business practices?

Thai AirAsia registered losses in the second quarter ended June 30 2009 at RM8.2 million...

Ryanair,europes most profitable airline is running into losses for the first time since 1997...

Once relentlessly profitable Southwest Airlines reported its third-consecutive loss..

I wonder why ,when someone posts on forum,and it is followed by another poster telling you that you are wrong,and you go to the trouble to point out that you are in fact not wrong,the said poster does not have the decency to even acknowledge that fact? Maybe would be appropriate and easy.

Seems to happen often.

Edited October 16, 2009 by loveitto