As their competitor you got to hate them but as their customer you simply got to love them, although you might have thousand and one reason to criticize them because you were comparing an apple and an orange. Before the creation of this creature called AirAsia Berhad (KLSE: AIRASIA, stock-code 5099), not many people can afford to fly domestically, let alone to another country. Of course if you’ve been the frequent flyer of Malaysian Airline System Berhad (KLSE: MAS, stock-code 3786) then nobody can blames you for screaming at the top of your voice that “AirAsia service sucks!”
Like it or not AirAsia is the most successful low-cost airline in this region and they are about to dominate this for some time. They’ve also set the standard as far as competitiveness is concerned. When you thought they’re already too cheap to do anything innovative to capture new customer base, they threw in the infamous popular marketing plan – Free Seats. Despite decades in business when was the last time you heard of MAS giving away free seats – even during their anniversaries celebration sake? Yet here you can not only fly around cheaply (no free meals provided of course) but also able to enjoy free seats periodically.
Since the emergence of AirAsia, MAS was caught unprepared but realized that in order to survive they somehow had to change. Today MAS is offering low fares for bookings now until January 23 via its call centre, ticket offices and online – if you plan to travel from Jan 14th – Mar 31st on domestic routes and from Jan 9th – Mar 15th for regional sectors. The fares would start from as low as RM39 for Malaysian domestic travel, RM79 for Asean destinations, RM199 to China and RM399 to the Indian sub-continent.
Meantime Tiger Airways, the Singapore’s version of low fare airlines, is offering over 15,000 free seats to customers to mark its sales launch today for its latest route, Singapore-Kuala Lumpur. The airline, which will operate daily flights from Feb 1st, said the free seats are available for booking online at their website from now until Friday, and are for travel until Oct 25th.
Tiger Airways which was awarded the rights to operate a daily service on the Singapore-Kuala Lumpur route last month will operate from the Low Cost Carrier Terminal at the KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International Airport). The 55-min Singapore-Kuala Lumpur daily flight will depart Changi Airport for KLIA LCCT at 10.50am and return from KLIA LCCT at 12.15pm from Feb 1 to March 29. Now everyone is wondering if MAS would be generous enough to offer free seats in the not too distance future- I’m sure you won’t mind if MAS was to take off the menu from the 55-min journey, would you?
Other Articles That May Interest You …
- Monopoly No More, AirAsia to fly to Singapore
- Tony Fernandes – The Truly Air Asia Hero (Part 1)
- Tony Fernandes – The Truly Air Asia Hero (Part 2)
|
|
January 7th, 2008 by financetwitter
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Comments
Add your comment now.
Leave a Reply