FAA Cleares Air Asia for US flights

[readerc54]

From Khaosod English site

KUALA LUMPUR — AirAsia X announced it has become the first Asian budget airline to win approval for direct flights to the United States.

The budget carrier’s plans to fly to American destinations, possibly as early as June, were given a green light Tuesday by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to fly to U.S. airports.

“This is a major milestone for AirAsia X. Our expansion up until now has concentrated on Asia, Australasia and the Middle East, and we are excited about our first foray into an entirely new market as we look beyond Asia Pacific,” CEO Datuk Kamarudin Meranun said in a statement.

AirAsia X plans to launch flights from Japan to Hawaii starting in June 2017, followed by routes to Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco, all leaving from Japan, according to the CAPA Centre for Aviation. The airline may also be mulling U.S.-bound flights from Malaysia.

There was no indication of any planned direct routes from Thailand.

The airline also said it would like to relaunch its service to London which it dropped in 2012.

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/tran ... lights-us/

[fountainhall]

I wonder how successful the airline will be when it relaunches the route to London. That just did not work before. The timing was not ideal. Flights landed at Stanstead rather than Gatwick or Heathrow. Fine for passengers used to the UK's low cost carriers who land there but not so easy for Asians. Another regular complaint was from passengers with onward bookings from KL. Too often the return flights were late with the result that many passengers were stuck in KL and unable to get renewed bookings sometimes for up to 2 days.

Japan to Honolulu looks like a sure fire success. Walk almost anywhere in Hawaii and most of the people seem to be young Japanese.