Those days are gone when flying to Malaysia for less than the price of ticket for Mumbai was possible. Air Asia has cancelled its thrice a week program of its flights to Kuala Lumpur from 26th of March. The demand of tickets is high for this route, still the flights have been cancelled. The reasons told by company for cancellation of flights are different.
First, the earned money per seat of airline is low. Second, the airport charges are high. Third, airline thinks that it can earn more money by deployment of its crafts for urban routes of Malaysia. The viability barriers for the Kuala Lumpur-Calcutta route’s operational cost were broken due to recent price-hike in aviation turbine’s fuel prices.
Air Asia Online BookingThe high fuel prices along with increased air port charges have pushed the company at the brink of cancellation of its flights to Kuala Lumpur. Otherwise, if company increases its fares, the public interest will be lost due to high fare prices. Now a foreign holiday is almost out of the reach of Calcutta travellers.
Bengal government put sales tax on ATF prices, this pushed the operational cost of flying routes to increase. Simultaneously, Air Asia is paying more commission to its Indian agents than its agents of the other countries. This has not let the company to earn profits from these routes. International travellers mostly depend on agents. The company however takes no extra charges through online bookings but still very few people select this option. The Calcutta-Kuala Lumpur flights were started in November of 2009. The fares were jaw-droppingly promotional, many tickets have been taken long before their actual date. But the company still is not able to continue with these routes.
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