Tuesday 6 May 2008

We'll pay you to fly?

A fare war is erupting between Malaysia Airlines and Air Asia for the umpteenth time.

You may have read in yesterday's mainstream media that MAS has launched a "zero fare" promotion on limited seats for flights within the country and this is likely to be extended to flights within the ASEAN region within the next fortnight or so.

All that an air traveller needs to pay will be the fuel surcharges and airport taxes. Ahh...that's the catch. You'll still need to pay something for the flights. But then, even if you fly on Air Asia, you'll still be subjected to the surcharge and tax. So it's not completely free.

Today, I read in the media that Air Asia is going to counter the MAS promotion with a campaign of its own which will be announced very, very shortly.

I don't know how much lower the prices can go beyond zero. But we'll know soon enough. Perhaps, will Air Asia introduce this temporary tagline during this fare war: "We'll pay you to fly with us"?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I found it amusing that a an airline like MAS would NEED to compete with AirAsia - it is after all a low fare airline. Needless to say, curiosity got the better of me and after hours on the web, I couldn't find anything cheaper on MAS...perhaps they missed the target, lol.

Anonymous said...

Even after tax, AirAsia’s prices still cheaper wor. MAS is struggling to keep up with AirAsia.

Anonymous said...

Not according to this calculation by this blogger. http://boobabble.blogspot.com/2008/05/air-asia.html