Thai AirAsia stops HCMC-Phuket service

Thai AirAsia has suspended its daily flight between HCMC and Thailand’s renowned resort destination Phuket nearly six months after the budget carrier launched the service.
A source from Thai AirAsia’s office in HCMC confirmed with the Daily on Wednesday that the airline had stopped flying between Phuket and Vietnam over the weekend as business had not fared as well as expected.
Operated by Thai AirAsia (a member airline of Malaysia’s low-cost AirAsia Group), the Phuket-HCMC flight was the newest air route that directly connected Thailand and Vietnam.
Thai AirAsia began the HCMC-Phuket service last December to bring foreign tourists to Vietnam and offer Vietnamese connecting flights to Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Hong Kong, Jakarta and other holiday destinations.
Currently, Thai AirAsia operates normal daily flights from Bangkok to Hanoi and HCMC, and vice versa despite unrest in the Thai capital.
In related news, Vietnam Airlines (VNA) said on its website that its flights to and from Bangkok were operating as scheduled.
However, the national carrier had to temporarily shutdown its office in Bangkok until further notice due to the blockade in the city’s center.
Vietnam Airlines advised passengers to call +66 21342001/ 002 or email doanphuminh bkk@vietnamair.com.vn if they required assistance during the office’s closure.
Foreign airline representatives told the Daily that the situation in Bangkok had directly affected flights from Vietnam.
* AirAsia Group is providing passengers with an option to pay in their preferred currency when booking low fares online to 65 destinations including Vietnam.
The carrier’s new multi-currency online sales platform gives guests instant pricing choices in pounds or in the U.S., Singaporean, Hong Kong, and Australian dollars when they purchase from www.airasia.com.
According to Tony Fernandes, AirAsia Group’s CEO, the objective is to ease passengers’ concerns about fluctuating exchange rates when reserving seats on one of the 600 plus flights the airline operates daily.
"The enhanced online sales platform will take away the uncertainty of fluctuating exchange rates for our guests, making the purchase of flights more convenient, straight-forward and transparent," said Fernandes in a statement obtained by the Daily.
AirAsia launched the platform using the RBSFX micropay solution that supports more than 60 currencies and can handle up to 3,000 transactions per second.
Passengers can use their credit cards issued for the aforementioned currencies to purchase AirAsia flights from anywhere in the world via the carrier’s website.
In addition, AirAsia is offering one million free seats on its website and via mobile.airasia.com until May 23 for flights to India, Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam and other destinations.
The free-seat fares apply to AirAsia flights from January 3 to May 8, 2011 within the carrier’s network of more than 130 routes.
Under the promotion, guests are only required to pay airport taxes starting at RM6 for domestic flights from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, and from RM25 for international flights.
All-in fares from HCMC will start from as low as BM25 (US$7.6), and flights from Hanoi will begin at RM49 (US$15).
Some long-haul routes are also included under the promotion. Inclusive fares for flights to the Gold Coast and Perth in Australia are available from RM149 and to Melbourne, New Delhi or Mumbai from BM199. Guests planning a European getaway can fly to London from RM699.