AirAsia eyes India
AirAsia is looking to expand into new markets, and has cited India as one of the most attractive options.
Following a strategic review of the its operations and future growth plans, AirAsia’s Group CEO, Tony Fernandes, said he believed India offered the most potential for expansion.
“India is an exciting market and I have been overwhelmed with the developments of the country recently in terms of promoting air travel. We will continue to explore opportunities there but I believe this market offers the most growth potential in terms of travel,” Fernandes said.
The Indian market would certainly meet AirAsia’s main criteria of targeting markets with large domestic populations. It has already established subsidiaries in many of Southeast Asia’s largest markets, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines. In 2011 it was also thwarted in its attempts to establish a Vietnamese subsidiary. Last year the launch of AirAsia Japan, in partnership with ANA, marked AirAsia’s first venture outside the ASEAN region.
The airline also confirmed that it has no plans to develop Singapore as a hub, as it believes there is already “an excess of capacity” out of the country. “Routes originating out of Singapore to larger population countries like China and India tend to be more than five hours, hence AirAsia’s decision not to proceed with any venture there in the foreseeable future,” it said.
AirAsia has plenty of scope for expansion, however. The group has placed orders for 475 Airbus A320 aircraft, of which just 114 have so far been delivered. Fernandes said that India and China would play a huge part of AirAsia’s future growth.
“ASEAN, including China and India… has over 3.2 billion population which is eight times bigger than Europe,” he said. “We see the potential of these markets hence why I am confident our huge aircraft orders will easily meet our capacity needs in the future.”