Benyamin Ismail, the CEO of budget airline AirAsia X, wants the coastal city in Borneo to become as familiar to Australians as the famous Bali beach destination.
AirAsia is eyeing Aussie travellers and wants the Malaysian-based low-cost carrier to be a serious contender in our budget travel market.
Its pitch to local travellers is its network can offer flights to places we might not have been able to afford before.
Speaking on the airline’s 10th anniversary in Australia, Mr Ismail, said it wants to beef up its Aussie operations to win budget travellers, and show us there is life beyond Bali.
“We see a lot of Australians travelling to Bali. So of course, we know that is a very strong market and we have been doing well in that market, but we have been trying to educate that there is life beyond Bali,” Mr Ismail told news.com.au.
It’s just that many Australians haven’t been able to get there, affordably, before.
“We want to focus on other islands in Malaysia — Penang, Langkawi and Kota Kinabalu.
“We are also looking at Sri Lanka — Colombo has a very nice stretch of beaches so we are pushing hard on that. And we are also looking at Vietnam.
“We know that there is an attraction there, we just want to make these markets affordable.”
AirAsia currently operates flights out of most of our major airports — Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Gold Coast and Darwin.
Flights from Sydney to Kota Kinabula start from $278 one-way, from Melbourne $288, or Perth from $228.
But Mr Ismail believes its their network within Asia that will open up low-cost travel to Australians once they are in the region.
For example, trips from Kuala Lumpur to Penang can go for as low as $10 or Bangkok to Phuket for $55 for a basic economy seat without all the comforts.
However, like most low-cost carriers, ticket prices only include a basic economy seat. If you want to add baggage allowance, a meal, standard seat selection and in-flight entertainment, you’ll have to pay an extra. These fees change depending on departure and arrival destinations and ticket prices can change depending on demand.
But Mr Ismail said giving passengers this choice on how they fly is an important part of how budget airlines are able to keep prices low.
“If you are really concerned about the cost and value for money, you don’t have to buy food, for example. That is the good thing about low-cost carriers, you pay for what you use,” he told.
“Whereas full-service airlines charge everything onto one ticket, but 60 per cent of those things you might not need. That’s really why we are able to transfer savings to our customers too.”
He said AirAsia is also able to make travel more affordable for Australians by focusing on volume and efficiency.
“We run a very cost-efficient operation which allows us to charge lower fares,” Mr Ismail said.
“We have more seats on our planes. We are a very high density aircraft, so the cost per seat is much lower. But how we operate staff is also quite efficient.
“When we look at the number of staff per aircraft — the number of total airline staff divided by the number of aircraft — we are at about 90 staff per aircraft.
“Low-cost carriers like Ryanair or EasyJet run their airlines at about 72 to 80 staff per aircraft. Full service carriers are sitting about 160 to 180.”
And he assures that efficiency doesn’t equal poor service.
“It just means if you arrive at a terminal to board, in a low-cost airline you might only have one staff member there welcoming you rather than five,” Mr Ismail said.
