Thai AirAsia cuts fees to reduce fares

BANGKOK:-- Thai AirAsia has reduced its fares by removing the ticket-booking fee from its fare structure in a move that should help the airline achieve its business goal this year and boost the country's tourism industry.

CEO Tassapon Bijleveld yesterday said the airline had over the past few months asked passengers to complete a questionnaire about their requirements.

Customers told the carrier that people still wanted to travel with the airline but at a more affordable price.

Thai AirAsia therefore decided to waive the ticket-booking fee, which is about Bt300 per passenger per trip, effective from yesterday. This applies to all bookings, whether or not they are made online.

Malaysian-based AirAsia early this year became the first airline in the world to do away with fuel |surcharges completely, as part of a strategy to increase passenger numbers.

"From now on, when customers open Thai AirAsia's homepage to reserve tickets, they will see only the fare and airport tax, which we have to collect from our passengers and pass to the airport operators. This strategy is what we call 'What You See Is What You Pay'.

"It will be easier and more transparent than in the past. Taking both the fuel surcharge and ticket-booking fee, we've now waived about Bt1,000 per passenger per trip.

This will make Thai AirAsia truly the lowest-cost airline in the world," Tassapon said.

Accompanying this announcement, the airline has launched a regional campaign offering cheaper fares, totalling 200,000 seats, on several routes for customers who book tickets until Sunday for travel between October 1 and next April 30.

Tassapon believes the booking-fee waiver will enable the carrier to achieve its goal of serving 5.2 million passengers this year.

"I also believe our big decision will boost the Thai tourism industry and that this will be good for all businesses, including hotels, resorts and restaurants," he said.

The CEO said Thai AirAsia's operating results for the first six months of the year were quite good, as passenger numbers were expected to grow by 12 per cent year on year. Revenue has also increased.

Passenger numbers from January to April increased by 15 per cent year on year but have fallen slightly in May and June, due to the type-A (H1N1) flu outbreak.

He said the airline's fare-reduction strategy was aimed at increasing passenger volume. A lower gross profit margin was not a problem as long as it could still make a net profit, he added.

"We can make a profit on some routes, such as Bali, Hong Kong, Phuket, Singapore and Krabi, but there will be losses on others. But we can still turn a net profit on our bottom line. That's why we can survive even though we've cut fares," he said.

Thai AirAsia plans to add another daily flight from Bangkok to Hong Kong in September and is considering opening a Bangkok-Taiwan route in the near future.


-- The Nation 2009-06-25

Not something to be proud of. In many countries it is against the law to lure people with low prices without telling them about all kind of surcharges. If I have dinner in a hotel I already find it tres bizarre to see that the bill is excluding service charge and I always ask them why there is no surcharge for the airconditioning the floor sweeper and the dishwasher.

Sweet!

Their CEO said that "what you see is what you pay", so how is that deceiving passengers?

Even in the past their website has been pretty clear that the fares offered didn't include various charges and taxes, but If you go through the steps you quickly do get to a full list of all charges.

But in their defence other airline websites make it much more difficult to get to a total price.

But I must agree, I'd rather see the full total immediately rather than have to go though several steps to get the total.

On a different slant, my family has now flown AirAsia more than 50 times, and overall the service (for a budget airline operation) is pretty good.

First time in history, Air asia offered me a 100 Thb meal and 1800 Thb voucher for 2 hours delay ! Never seen any airline doing that before.

I don't believe it. I keep buying ZERO fare, and it keeps getting cheaper and cheaper.

In Nov'08 I bought some ZERO fares and I thought I had a bargain for Oct'09. First AA drop Fuel Surcharge. Then AA drop Admin Fee which further reduce the price. I now could buy the same ticket at 40% of what I paid which was suppose to be a ZERO fare.

So what the Fcuk. I felt cheated by AA ZERO fare scheme. Is this how you treat your loyal customer?

Tried to book Chiang Mai to Melbourne a couple of days ago on the internet, all went just fine untill I gave them my Bangkok Bank debit card, then the problems started, they gave me some numbers to call the bank, nothing worked. I took my card to the Bangkok Bank and they told me Air Asia will not accept debit cards. Went to the Air Asia office at the airport and they wanted 7,000 Baht more for the ticket than the internet price, actually more than Singapore Airlines wanted for the same trip. Tried to book Singapore Airlines but the special price meant you must return in less than a month, I wanted five weeks. Finally booked Air Asia through the travel agents which cost me 5,000 Baht more than the internet booking would have been.

Oh FFS.. !

I suggest you take your business elsewhere if it bothers you so much..

Totster

Regardless whether they "lure" me with fake cheap fares or not, and then "add on" the extra charges...

SWEET DEALS!

Round Trip ALL IN (including the "horrible" add ons)

My upcoming AirAsia trips:

BKK-SIN-BKK 1,775 Nett
BKK-KUL-BKK 2,360 Nett
BKK-HKG-BKK 3,380 Nett (And I booked late for this one, so promo fair was only on outbound trip, not inbound)

(The KUL trip includes MEALS and shuttle bus to the city, and HKG trip includes a meal too!)

*AirAsia is known to have one of the best (some people even say "the best") Nasi Lemak meals ever; and I've tried it and it's indeed "to die for". So I pre-ordered it online for my KUL and HKG trips.

Tender chicken rendang with fragrant coconut milk and pandan rice. Mmmmm....

Mmmmm. I flew with them last week, to and from BKK (from Phuket) and BOTH flights were late 2 hours.

No apology, no offer of anything.

I wonder how you rate this 1800 baht voucher???

I love their prices but sitting in the airport an extra 4 hours was not worth it.

 I_ll_go.jpg ( 122.34K ) Number of downloads: 2

Hi,

I really don't know why they gave two of us a 1800 thb voucher, but it's true, and also the 100 thb voucher for meal, and we didn't ask anything !

Maybe it was our lucky day !

Cheers.