Air Asia Pulls Out Of Europe & Reduces India Services

[theoldgit]

Disappointing their service is being curtailed.

Qantas also from Spring no longer flying Heathrow-Bangkok

Sign of difficult economic times

Indeed a sign of difficult times for passengers as well. Fewer carriers into the UK and mainland Europe means less competition and allows the remaining carriers to jack up their prices.

[zydeco]

Ryannair boss O'leary said years ago that he would never get involved in long haul flights due to the expense of flying into hub and even secondary airports plus aviation fuel etc.It now appears even flying into Stansted is unprofitable. The big carriers continue with long haul flights only because theyre subsidised by the home taxpayer. How much longer before BA,KLM-AF ,SAS, Swiss,Alitalia and Olympic go bust again. Most of these airlines went out of business years ago but came back to life with taxpayer bailouts. BA is nothing more than the resurrected corpse of BOAC.

The airline industry is the worst business in the world to get involved in along with cars.

Everyone wants to fly in state of the art airplanes but for the lowest possible price and free fares with FF Program. Unreal.

Warren Buffett said that airlines were a great leap for mankind but a disaster for investors (and he should know having done very poorly with a stake in UsAir and lost a bundle on NetJets in the late 1990's, an investment he put down to "temporary insanity").

There cannot be many industries that have never made a cumulative net profit since inception but which remain in business 109 years later.

As the saying goes, if you want to make a small fortune investing in airlines, makes sure you start out with a large fortune.

[nickmanchester2]

I have not contacted AirAsia yet about my ticket to KL from UK in may, but why haven't they asked me what of the 3 options I am interested in before they go ahead and 'block-booked seats' as they do not know the numbers of people wanting them. They have also requested people not to call them as well.

Dear Valued Guest,

We understand everyone is anxious to get confirmations on available alternative flights (Option 3), and we are working furiously to get everything done.

We are committed to providing those that need alternate flights with seats on other airlines.

We have block-booked seats with other airlines to cater for this.

However, as we are dealing with other airline’s reservation systems, our call centre operators and sales office staff do nothave access to their reservation systems, and cannot process bookings.

As such, we respectfully request that you do not call our call centre or visit our sales offices to book alternative flights.

A separate team is liaising with other airlines to send our passenger details to them, for them to complete the booking.

This has to be done in batches, by flights. If we were to do individual bookings, moving from different travel dates, it will take even longer.

The alternative flights from London will be from Heathrow and Paris will be from Charles de Gaulle.

As for alternative flights from Mumbai and Delhi, it will depart/arrive from the same airport which you have been booked on.

While most of our passengers will be able to get seats on the same day of travel, there may be limited instances where we can only get a seat within +/- 1 day.

You should expect the emails with details of the alternative flight bookings two months before your scheduled flight date.

We are working to ensure we can do it even faster than that, but we have to work within the parameters of other airlines’ systems and processes.

If you absolutely need immediate confirmation because of pressing travel requirements, may we suggest that you opt for Option 1 (full refund).

Those who have sent us emails on refund requests are already being attended to.

For those who want this option, please send booking reference number to [email protected].

Several have already asked about Option-2 (re-route), including wanting to get on our new flights to Sydney. This is possible.

You may also change the travel date or change the name of the passenger, all at no additional fees.

Please send requests with booking reference number to [email protected].

For Option 2 (re-route) we will process the new itinerary within 1 week and please do include the following details below in the request:

1. Departure Airport:

2. Departure Date:

3. Return Airport:

4. Return Date:

We understand you may also have queries on connecting transfers from Kuala Lumpur to other final destinations.

We will work to accommodate all of the different individual requirements, including changing flight date if the new alternative flights no longer meets connection times (at no additional fees).

We ask that these issues are brought up once the emails go out with the details of the alternative flights.

Once again, we are truly sorry for the inconvenience the flight cancellations have caused, and we remain fully committed to attending to every guest.

We humbly seek your kind understanding and patience and we work through the many individual cases involved.

Sincerely,

AirAsia X

[lifemagic]

I can't understand people saying they were the same price as everyone else.

I have commitments in UK so flew twice to stanstead with them and booked about 10 months in advance. I paid 130.00 gbp, plus another 20 for extras and it cost about 30 in fares to get to KL (as I know how to do the trip). So in total it was still half the price of other airlines. The seats etc. were the same, just no tv or progress map. Arriving in Stanstead, I'd sleep in section K for the night, saving 50.00 in hotels, and was laughing.

Now I've got to go back in October, and it will be harder. But isn't there a new airline in Singapore taking the route over, in April, called scoot or something? That's what I heard.

[nickmanchester2]

will keep my eyes peeled for that scoot website and yeah, of course they were cheaper providing you played by their rules...

only book when a sale shows up - i used to check every day on the web site.

use SCB account to get no credit card fees

no luggage

Think mine was £143 one way with choice of seat so I dont get stuck on the isle - I got a sale ticket from Surat Thani to KL as well for £15 one way - no choice of seat which does not matter for this short fligh

[mysterytrevor]

I am currently in the UK having arrived on this promotion to Gatwick and am due to return to K/L on the 12th June. Have had the same emails you guys have had telling me they are rebooking with other airlines but so far have not had the rescheduled flight details. Should I be getting concerned or are there others who are still waiting and has anyone already returned with a rebooked flight from Heathrow and who did you fly with