AirAsia X Switches London Operation to Gatwick

Low-cost, long-haul carrier AirAsia X has announced that it will switch its current Kuala Lumpur – London flight from Stansted to Gatwick Airport from the start of the Northern Winter schedules at the end of October. The airline is known to have been in talks with the management of both airports over the past year and such a move was rumoured to be on the cards in the spring.

AirAsia X first launched flights to London in March 2009 and currently offers six flights per week. Its arrival in the UK market has seen passenger traffic to and from Malaysia increase by around a third with its low fares stimulating the market. As the table below highlights, in the past year the airline carried around 128,000 O&D passengers on the route giving it a 33.2 per cent share of the total Kuala Lumpur – London market.

But, its business model is more than just point-to-point traffic as the route has fast turned Kuala Lumpur into a regional hub connecting three continents, with Australians and New Zealanders regularly flying into the Malaysian capital and connecting on. On the other side British and European travellers are using AirAsia X’s service to Kuala Lumpur and in turn connecting onto AirAsia’s extensive route network to travel throughout South-East Asia, to such popular destinations as Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.

AirAsia X says the move to Gatwick will facilitate onward development of the route with additional connecting options thanks particularly to the strong network of easyJet from the airport.

“Gatwick Airport was chosen as it demonstrated the passion to work with us in realising our objectives to grow passenger traffic between our hubs in Asia Pacific and London. With our new home base in Gatwick, guests would be able to further benefit from the airport’s destination served, airline diversity, and beyond market connectivity potential with faster and cheaper rail connectivity to the city as compared to Stansted,” explained Azran Osman-Rani, Chief Executive Officer, AirAsia X.

“We see strong potential for the airport as we believe our entry will address the fact that direct services to Asia is significantly underserved from Gatwick,” he added, confirming at a press conference to announce the switch that “Stansted as a gateway has diminished as Air Passenger Duty has gone up”.

AirAsia X will transfer its flights on October 24 and will continue to use an Airbus A340-300, which has 327 seats including 18 Premium seats. It will initially reduce frequencies to just three times per week but will revert to five weekly flights in December and up to six rotations at a later date. The loss of the route is a major blow for London Stansted which has continually lost its long-haul services due to airline failures or operators suspending flights.

The announcement is completely separate to the airline’s proposed European network growth, a process that it is completing in partnership with Routesonline. The airline revealed last month that it had received a “tremendous response” to the recent Request for Proposals (RFP) for the expansion of its European route network. The final deadline for responses is August 1 and by September 1 AirAsia X will have formalised a shortlist of possible new airport partners. The airline is due to take delivery of five Airbus A330-200s from 2012 and also has 10 A350s on order.