Malaysian carriers to expand their network by end 2008; AirAsia to fly to Tiruchirapalli, India

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian low cost and community airline AirAsia, AirAsia X and Firefly are reported to be planning a further network expansion that will play out before the end of 2008.

Air Asia X will expand its network from Kuala Lumpur to Australia, commencing services to Melbourne and Perth in November 2008, according to a statement by the Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad.

Additionally, AirAsia will commence flights to Tiruchirapalli, India while new carrier Air Niugini is looking to start services to Papua New Guinea. Firefly will connect two new points from Penang to Medan and to Banda Aceh in Indonesia.

The statement said that no new carriers were expected on the fully deregulated Kuala Lumpur-Singapore trunk route from 1 December 2008, where AirAsia and Tiger Airways have already announced frequency increases.

Both airlines have added an additional four daily frequencies, with Air Asia up to six daily and Tiger Airways five daily.

That would mean a capacity addition of around 56 weekly flights (40 per cent) over and above the existing 129 weekly flights between KL and Singapore.