Philippines seen as AirAsia’s biggest market

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia—Malaysia-based AirAsia projects over a million passengers by 2012 from its future hub operations in the Philippines, an official said.

Further by 2020, AirAsia hopes to put up a hub in all of the 10 member-countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), said the budget airline’s regional head for corporate quality, Zahman Ahmad.

“There are 92 million people in the Philippines. In the future, we see the Philippines as the biggest market,” Ahmad said.

“We already have aspirations to bring as many as four aircrafts by 2012,” he added.

And with a 180-seater aircraft flying six times a day, Ahmad said the number of passengers flying from Clark could reach over a million.

At present, AirAsia has commercial flights from its three hubs in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

Wanting to put up a fourth hub in the Philippines, it forged a partnership this year with three Filipino businessmen – Antonio “Tonyboy” Cojuangco Jr., Michael Romero and Marianne Hontoveros. It will soon start its operations at the Diosdado Macapagal International Airport in Clark Freeport, Pampanga, which will base of operations in the country.

AirAsia’s first plane arrived in Clark last August 15 but it has yet to get the approval of aviation authorities to be able to fly commercially, hopefully before the year ends.

Ahmad admitted that the biggest challenge in opening its operations in the Philippines was getting the necessary documents needed to start the commercial flights.

But AirAsia was confident of getting the go-signal of the authorities, citing its good reputation and record over the past 10 years.

Aside from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines, AirAsia also wants to expand its operations in all other Asean member-countries.

The other members are Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam.

“We envision that by 2020, we should actually have an airline in all the Asean countries. We need to rid ourselves of tying up the brand of AirAsia with Malaysia. For that reason, we’re starting an Asean office in Jakarta,” Ahmad said.