AirAsia enhances connectivity from East Malaysia to Southern China
Sepang, 12 November 2012
AirAsia, the world’s best low cost airline adds another new route into their extensive route network with the launch of Kota Kinabalu to Guangzhou, making the connection from Kota Kinabalu to the vibrant city of Southern China the 25th route from Kota Kinabalu International Airport for AirAsia.
The Kota Kinabalu – Guangzhou route will commence on 25 December 2012 with daily flights, enabling more Chinese to access Kota Kinabalu.
This new route will be available for booking on AirAsia’s website, www.airasia.com from today onwards and AirAsia is offering a promotional all-in-fare of RM88 one way until 16 November 2012. The travel period will be from 25 December 2012 until 30 Sept 2013. Guests are also able to book their flights via AirAsia’s new and improved mobile apps as well which are available for download at Apple’s App Store for iPhone and iPad, Google’s Play Store for Android phones, or at mobile.airasia.com for WAP enabled phones.
Aireen Omar, Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia Berhad says, “As you can see, AirAsia is quite aggressive in maintaining our status quo as the largest foreign airline by capacity into China at the moment according to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA). Sabah has seen a significant increase of at least 30% in tourist arrivals from China, including Hong Kong and Macau from January to August 2012 as compared to the same period in 2011. With the existing Kota Kinabalu – Shenzhen and Hong Kong routes, we are confident this new route will further boost tourism numbers into Sabah.”
The AirAsia Group has announced seven other new routes to China this year from Bangkok to Chongqing, Wuhan, and Xian; as well as from Chiang Mai to Macau (operated by Thai AirAsia), as well as from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing (operated by AirAsia X), Nanning and Kunming.
Kathleen Tan, Group Commercial Head of AirAsia also commented, “Enhancing the connection from East Malaysia to Guangzhou and vice versa has been at the heart of our expansion into China, completing the big picture of the 7 other routes that we launched this year from our various hubs into China. The best part for us being based in the Asean region is the huge outbound travel demand from China into Asean, and we believe that we are placing ourselves in the right place and in the right time, to drive a revolution of young, free & independent travelers and backpackers through AirAsia’s aggressive route network.”
Guangzhou is one of China’s most populous city with modern marvels such as the Canton Tower, the tallest television tower on earth and among the world’s top ten tallest buildings; and the Chime-Long Paradise, which is one of China’s largest amusement park. The 5A-graded national scenic spot in China, Baiyun Mountain is also located in Guangzhou. Those looking for a relaxing time can opt for easygoing activities such as the Pearl River Night Cruise, which brings you down the famous Pearl River in a two-hour night cruise.
Delectable Chinese cuisine is in abundance in Guangzhou with famous must-haves such as the Shahe Rice Noodle, steamed rice rolls, Boat Porridge, Chinese barbeque meats and more. For shopaholics, Mayflower Plaza, Grandview Mall, China Plaza, Teem Mall and Onelink Plaza are some of the places that will satisfy any shopping urge.
“Guangzhou has so much to offer, and based on the travel trends of the guests that travel with AirAsia, they usually take good advantage of our extensive route network and connectivity and fly from the various hubs we operate from. We foresee that this new Kota Kinabalu – Guangzhou route will open up more opportunities for Malaysians and other travelers to discover Guangzhou and its treasures,” added Aireen.
Apart from that, AirAsia is also increasing its flight frequencies from Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong to 4x daily effective 21 December 2012, and will be releasing the seats for sale on www.airasia.com today until 25 November 2012 with an all-in-fare from as low as RM199 one way. Guests are able to travel from 21 December 2012 until 30 April 2013.
Guests are encouraged to pre-book their check-in baggage allocation online along with their flight bookings as they are able to save up to 66% as compared to checking-in their bags over the airport counter.
Apart from that, guests are also able to pre-book their in-flight meals with a wide variety of hot meals available on board with an option to book up to two meals for each guest. Check-in baggage allocation, in-flight meals, Pick-A-Seat, travel insurance and more are all available online and guests are able to add or make changes to their booking very simply through ‘Manage My Booking’.
For more updates on AirAsia’s latest innovations, as well as promotions, activities and contests, connect with them via Twitter (twitter.com/AirAsia) or Facebook (facebook.com/AirAsia).
Kota Kinabalu – Guangzhou flight schedule
|Kuala Lumpur to Guangzhou||AK 1530||2000hrs||2315hrs||Daily|
|Guangzhou to Kuala Lumpur||AK 1531||0005hrs||0315hrs||Daily|
Kuala Lumpur – Hong Kong 4th daily frequency schedule
|Kuala Lumpur to Hong Kong||AK 1652||0855hrs||1245hrs||Daily|
|Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur||AK 1653||1320hrs||1710hrs||Daily|