Head of Firefly Holiday, Lau Yin May, said that sales at the travel and tourism fair exceeded the airline’s target of RM1.5 million.

“Our sales at MATTA fairs just keep on getting better and better, and this is definitely the most successful MATTA Fair that we have participated in,” she said in a statement on Monday.

The airline said its latest Firefly Mobile Booking feature contributed RM30,000 sales at MATTA Fair this year.

“The figure further convinces Firefly that mobile booking is a potential medium of booking and purchasing flights tickets in the coming future,” it said.

Firefly is operated under FlyFirefly Sdn Bhd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Malaysian Airline System Bhd.

It received the “Best Value Airline of the Year” award at the 2010 Frost and Sullivan Asia Pacific Aerospace and Defence Awards.

Source: Bernama

On July 1, an AirAsia Airbus A330 will make the maiden flight from Kuala Lumpur to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport and will fly the return route one hour later.

The Taipei-based China Airlines and EVA Airways as well as Malaysia Airlines all operate flights between Taipei and Kuala Lumpur. AirAsia, based in Malaysia, will be the third low-fare, no-frills airline to serve Taiwan since the Singaporean JetStar Asia Airways and the Philippines-based Cebu Pacific Air began operations in the country.

Source: Taiwan News

The maiden flight will be on August 15, following which there will be daily direct flights between the two capital cities, it said in a statement here Wednesday.

The low cost carrier said promotional all-in fares are being offered from as low as LKR4,090 (RM99) one-way and exclusively available online via AirAsia’s website.

Booking for promotional seats ends June 14, 2009 for travel between Aug 15, 2009 and April 30, 2010.

Source: Bernama

Terengganu Menteri Besar Datuk Ahmad Said said there would be three flights a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

“With the flights more tourists will come to Kuala Terengganu. Before going to the islands or lakes they could spend money here and this will increase income of businesses and boost Terengganu’s economy,” he said at a briefing by Firefly by its managing director Eddy Leong here Wednesday.

Ahmad said each flight could carry 70 passengers, took 20 minutes and the fare was RM88 one-way.

He said the state government would provide subsidies to the carrier including passenger tax, landing tax and parking tax in efforts to encourage more outgoing flights.

“We have plans for Terengganu-Guangzhou, China flights,” he said.

Leong said for the cheap fare passengers have to make bookings 30 days in advance as the normal Kuala Terengganu-Singapore fare was RM120.

Last year, Terengganu received 3.5 million tourists most of them from Singapore.

Source: Bernama

AirAsia Bhd, South-East Asia’s biggest discount carrier, said earnings for the first quarter were fantastic after the company boosted passenger numbers.

Earnings for the second quarter were also looking good, chief executive officer Datuk Tony Fernandes told Bloomberg Television in an interview yesterday. He didn’t elaborate.

AirAsia’s first-quarter passenger numbers surged 21% from a year earlier as more people chose low-fare airlines for their leisure trips amid job concerns and the economic recession.

That contrasts with lower traffic for bigger regional rivals, including Singapore Airlines Ltd, which is cutting routes and taking out planes.

The airline carried 3.15 million passengers in the first quarter, AirAsia said in an April 22 statement. The carrier, which has not reported first-quarter earnings, expected to fly 24 million people this year, Fernandes said on April 29.

The growth in traffic contrasts with declining passenger numbers worldwide. Global airline passenger traffic fell 11.1% last month compared with a year earlier, according to the International Air Transport Association.

Airlines already suffering from the global recession have been further hit as air travel declines due to the spread of swine flu virus, which has sickened at least 1,085 people in 21 countries.

Fernandes said the influenza A (H1N1) virus hadn’t dented AirAsia’s passenger numbers.

“There is no impact at all,” he said. “People are fairly sensible, they’ve seen that it’s really probably a storm in a tea cup. It’s business as usual, and bookings have been very strong.”

AirAsia expected to start a Hong Kong-Phuket route in June or July, Fernandes said.

Source: Bloomberg