AirAsia X has launched its inaugural flight to Beijing. The low-cost carrier touched down in the Chinese capital on Saturday (23 June), following a flight from Kuala Lumpur.
The airline will initially fly the route four times a week, but this will rise to daily from 6 August. The launch of Beijing flights has come at the expense of AirAsia X’s KL-Tianjin service however, which has now been cancelled.
Azran Osman-Rani, CEO of AirAsia X commented; “The shift from our Tianjin base to Beijing Capital International Airport has… increased passenger traffic to and from Beijing, with an average target of over 80% passenger load for the next three months. With the additional flight frequencies from August 6 onwards, we foresee a strong growth trajectory of new segments of travellers between Malaysia and Southeast Asia to Beijing and its surrounding regions and vice versa.”
Beijing becomes the AirAsia group’s seventh destination in China, following Hangzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chongqing and Guilin.
The launch of AirAsia X’s Beijing flights forms part of the Malaysian government’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), which has identified the Chinese capital as one of the 10 priority cities with which to develop tourism trade. The others are Shanghai, Mumbai, Delhi, Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul and Taipei.
