Budget Air Essay

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TOURISM No frills budget airlines take over Asian skies By Sascha Roosen After the success stories from low fare airlines like Southwest Airlines (US) and Ryanair (Ireland), new budget airlines are taking Asia by storm. It has taken much longer for the formula to gain ground in Asia, because of the rarity of cheap secondary airports, regulatory hurdles by governments to protect national carriers, and the fact that Asian travellers like their perks too much. Even so, currently there are more than a dozen budget airlines which have either recently started or are scheduled to start soon in Asia. It seems everyone in Asia wants to start a budget carrier- Airline AirAsia (Malaysia) was launched as Asia’s first low fare, no frills carrier in January 2002, and has been followed by Singapore’s Valuair in May 2004. Some others fighting for the pie are Air Decan (India), Air Do (Japan), Lion Air, Air Paradise, Bouraq (indonesia), Jetstar Asia, and Singapore Airlines new low-cost airline Tiger Airways. No frills airlines In the past six months, factory supervisor V. Munusamy has flown twice to Penang. This is quite a change for a man who before his 46th birthday had never seen the inside of an aircraft. For a long time, he has been like 97 per cent of Malaysians who could only dream about travelling domestically by air, because of the high cost. This scenario is changing quickly with the arrival of the budget airlines. The emergence of the budget travel phenomenon in the region will stimulate additional traffic, creating opportunities both for new carriers and also leasing companies, which supply their aircraft. Short airport turnaround times, a uniform fleet to save maintenance costs, ticketless travel, and even the use of cabin crew to do the clean up on board, all contribute to the low-cost formula. Singaporean Ibrahim sums up the whole philosophy of low-cost

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