LANGKAWI: AirAsia Bhd’s third route to Shenzhen from Langkawi is expected to boost tourist arrivals on the island.
The new flight is scheduled to commence operations on July 16 with three weekly flights on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.
AirAsia chief executive officer Aireen Omar said that AirAsia had always expanded in markets in which it operated, and Langkawi was no exception.
“The number of passengers flown year on year into Langkawi has increased by 30% from 2015 to 2016,” she said.
Aireen announced the new flight at Lima 2017, which was witnessed by Transport Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai.
Aireen said there was so much potential for Langkawi, and with the resources and marketing initiatives in place, AirAsia could expand the market demand for Langkawi from Shenzhen.
“AirAsia looks forward to working with all parties, especially from the tourism industry on both ends to ensure that we optimise on this new route,” she added.
Langkawi was AirAsia’s first route to be operated in 2001 and it currently serves five routes from the island of Langkawi with 106 flights to two international destinations (Singapore and Guangzhou), and three domestic flights (Kuala Lumpur, Penang and Johor Baru).
Meanwhile, Liow who launched the new route, described it as very important as it would increase the number of tourists to Langkawi.
“We will continue to enhance the capability and capacity of the airport. We are not experiencing full capacity of 2.5 million to 2.7 million passengers yearly.
“AirAsia alone contributed 1.7 million passengers to Langkawi last year. We will continue to expand the Langkawi airport so that it can cater for 5 million passengers and I hope there will be more airlines coming into Langkawi,” he said.
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