WITH the public livid over soaring air flight tickets nearing the holiday season, AirAsia Malaysia said that it was due economies of scale and the present challenges facing the aviation industry.
As a low-cost carrier, we are in the volume business, which allows us to pass on the lowest fares to our guests. AirAsia’s operation is all about economies of scale where we need to achieve a high passenger volume so that costs can be spread among a sizable number of passengers, allowing us to offer travellers low fares and giving them great value for money.
“Historically, our average fare for flights between Sarawak and Peninsula Malaysia has been around RM160 (one way) per passenger. This takes into account the highest fares and the lowest, including when we offer zero fare promotional sales,” its CEO Riad Asmat said in a statement.
He noted that AirAsia pricing model was similar to other airliners across the globe, where everything was based on supply and demand.
With the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee (SDMC) limiting flight frequency there duo to various concerns, Asmat said it had reduced supply of flight seats.
“AirAsia’s demand-based dynamic pricing mechanism has inevitably derived prices seen as unfavourable to buyers at this time.
“It must be remembered that this is also the same mechanism that we used to offer guests promotional fares from as low as RM99 one way earlier in October.
“But as a general rule, fares will be higher, closer to the travel date and during peak holiday periods when our flights are already near full. Buyers have already taken up to 90% of our capacity on most flights. The limitation on the number of flights available in the market is a key factor that has pushed the prices higher across all airlines,” he stressed.
Have petitioned the authorities
With the latest approval given by the authorities, Riad said that AirAsia will be flying five daily flights between Kuala Lumpur and Kuching, which is a 67% reduction compared to pre-COVID-19 times.
However, he stated that Sarawak’s Transport Ministry (MOTS) and SDMC had provided for an additional 42 weekly flights from Peninsula Malaysia and Sabah for a limited time, from Dec 4 to Jan 5, 2022.
“This has brought the fares down from around RM1,000 one way to below RM200 for a Kuala Lumpur to Kuching flight and these were very quickly snapped up,” Riad mentioned.
He concluded: “We would like to express our sincere appreciation to SDMC and MOTS for the additional flight approval for the Christmas holiday season.
“However, we would like to appeal to MOTS and SDMC to also approve our request for extra Chinese New Year flights, and to remove frequency restrictions on all the approved flights entirely to enable us to better manage cost efficiency and lower the fares for passengers.” – Nov 27, 2021
