iscover
AirAsia Malaysia (AK) has commenced daily services between Perth and Kuala Lumpur, complementing a route by sister airline AirAsia X.
The low-cost carrier is flying A320neos and A321neos from the Malaysian capital alongside AirAsia X’s A330 flights, doubling the group’s KL-Perth services from seven to 14 per week. The first AK604 service from KL touched down in Perth just after 7:34pm on Monday aboard the A321neo 9M-VAA.
The new AK service originally announced in November will add more than 3,000 seats weekly through Perth, which is also served by AirAsia Indonesia services six times weekly to Jakarta and 27 weekly to Bali.
“Malaysia is Western Australia’s fourth biggest international visitor market, injecting $99 million into the WA economy in visitor expenditure for the year ending in September 2023,” said Perth Airport chief commercial and aviation officer Kate Holsgrove.
“We’ve got strong business, education, trade and tourism links with Malaysia and this new non-stop service provides further opportunities by adding more than 170,000 new seats to the Perth market annually.
“We look forward to building a strong partnership with AirAsia Malaysia to ensure the success of this service.”
According to AirAsia Aviation Group CEO Bo Lingam, the inaugural flight was 95 per cent full, which he hailed as a “great sign of things to come”.
“Thanks to the addition of new model aircraft like the A321neo with longer range capabilities (over five hours) and numerous operational efficiency, we are able to make these new services a reality on a narrowbody aircraft from Kuala Lumpur,” he said.
“With over 300 new specification aircraft on order for the AirAsia Group, we look forward to reviewing more services to Australia in the future including places we have never flown before, which will be announced in due course.
“This is the most capacity the AirAsia Group, including affiliate medium haul airline AirAsia X, has ever had into West Australia which is now the fastest growing destination in Australia with over 15,000 visitor seats flown weekly or nearly 800,000 annually, through Perth Airport.”
Malaysia Airlines and Batik Air Malaysia also offer connections between Perth and Kuala Lumpur.
