AirAsia celebrates Kolkata- Kuala Lumpur inaugural flight

Kolkata, Nov 20 AirAsia held a celebratory event in Kolkata Friday, to commemorate its successful inaugural flight from Kolkata - Kuala Lumpur.

Kolkata is one of the airline's latest Indian destinations which opened for sale recently, alongside Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum).

Following a successful launch of Trichy last year, AirAsia started three new routes from Kuala Lumpur to Kolkata, Kochi and Trivandrum which opened for sale on Oct 15, 2009.

The airline is confident that the route will provide a positive boost for tourism activities and stimulate local economies of India and Malaysia, said an official release.

Kathleen Tan, Regional Head of Commercial Airasia said, 'With Kolkata added to our extensive network, AirAsia is unlocking the potential of international air travel from Kuala Lumpur to eastern India and its surrounding areas. We are thrilled to be serving Kolkata direct, a huge market that no other airline is serving direct.

'With the commencement of the direct service to Kuala Lumpur, the people in West Bengal and India may now use Kolkata as a gateway to our extensive route network to ASEAN and beyond. With 28,000 seats sold to date for the new route, it is a significant achievement for this market. We are very committed to expand this market and provide excellent opportunity to the community to enjoy our unbelievable low fares and world class service.'

AirAsia is currently the one of the largest low-cost carrier in Asia and services the most extensive route network in South East Asia with over 70 destinations across 20 countries and 9 major hubs in Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Kota Kinabalu), Thailand (Bangkok, Phuket) and Indonesia (Jakarta, Bali, Surabaya, Bandung).

It has grown from a modest two aircraft to its current fleet of 85, servicing over 130 routes in 7 years.

--IBNS