AirAsia sees signs of recovery

MANILA, Philippines — The AirAsia Group, Asia’s largest low-cost carrier, expects air travel to bounce back soon as it sees strong signs of recovery in its key domestic markets, including the Philippines.

“Air travel is essential for the world’s economy and AirAsia is already seeing strong signs of recovery in our key domestic markets where there is much pent-up demand,” AirAsia Group president Bo Lingam said.

“AirAsia’s domestic services in Thailand, for example, are already at close to 100 percent of pre-COVID capacity levels and there are similar strong positive signs from across the AirAsia Group, including in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, indicating that forward bookings for future travel are already on the rebound in our major markets,” he said.

With a network of over 160 destinations across Asia and the Pacific, AirAsia said it is well positioned in the aviation travel market to recover faster than many other airlines.

“The general outlook is that air travel will be bouncing back real soon; we expect to get back to pre-pandemic levels on many routes across the group by mid-2021, if not earlier. I am not alone in this prediction; it’s a common view shared by many industry colleagues – that it won’t take very long before mass tourism returns to normal globally,” Lingam said.

AirAsia Philippines last September indicated that confidence in air travel is slowly returning and it sees travel demand getting stronger by next year.

The airline reported an “impressive” commercial flights sales in August, closing the month with a 140 percent increase in seats sold.

A third of bookings registered were for 2021, reflecting a demand for future travel, it said.

AirAsia Philippines has continuously been offering its customers deals that aim to re-energize air travel demand and help the country’s economic recovery.

With the recent announcement of Bohol opening its doors to tourism, the carrier said it would be resuming flights from Manila to Bohol starting Dec. 1.

“We are pleased to be able to reopen our services to and from Bohol for both essential and leisure travelers. We hope that the resumption of connectivity between both regions will further assist local businesses and enterprises in Bohol,” AirAsia Philippines CEO Ricky Isla said.

“AirAsia will continue to support the national and local governments in their efforts to  jumpstart the travel and tourism industries in the Philippines,” Isla said.