Asia-Pacific: March 2007 Archives

Virgin Atlantic is not worried about new competition from long-haul low-cost or all-premium start-ups.

The carrier's group commercial director, Willy Boulter, was asked about the impact start-ups in the new long-haul, low cost and all-premium sectors at a small press conference yesterday in London following the signing of a new alliance agreement with Japan's All Nippon Airways (ANA).

Virgin Atlantic is already competing with Oasis Hong Kong Airlines between London and Hong Kong and AirAsia is planning to also launch a long-haul low-cost carrier that aims to serve London by year-end.

"It is an interesting development," Boulter says. "But there are structural differences between the short-haul and long-haul markets.

Several days exposed to the US investor community has not phased AirAsia founder Tony Fernandes one bit. In fact, when Airline Business caught up with the Malaysian low-cost carrier pioneer last week, he enjoyed the experience.

"It's refreshing," he says, sporting his trademark red AirAsia cap ("it's free advertising"). "American investors really do understand the low-cost model. Asian analysts are still grappling with it."

Happy birthday to Singapore's Budget Terminal, which has just turned one. Hip hip hooray! More than 1.36 million passengers have passed through its doors in the past 12 months, with the average number of passengers handled per month up 80%.

Two low-cost carriers serve the terminal: state-backed Tiger Airways and Cebu Pacific Air.

As these low-cost carriers continue to expand, so does passenger traffic at the low-cost terminal. Tiger dominates the terminal, operating 250 of the 276 total number of flights weekly.

"The healthy progress made by the Budget Terminal today is testimony that the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore had made a right decision to build a customised terminal to meet the operational requirements of low-cost carriers," says Mr Wong Woon Liong (pictured), director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore.

The budget theme extended to celebrations of the anniversary, with passengers and invited guests entertained with a live shopping game, as well as singers from Project Superstar and Singapore's largest travel board game in Singapore. The picture shows CAAS director general, Mr Wong Woon Liong (4th from right), celebrating the Budget Terminal's first birthday with Singapore's Project Superstar winners, Daren Tan and Lydia Tan, and airport staff.

One has to wonder what direction the low-cost industry is going in following the forging of two unusual partnerships between low-cost carriers and tiny regional operators.

Thailand's SGA Airlines from Sunday will operate Cessna 208Bs for Nok Air on flights from Chang Mai in northern Thailand to Chang Rai, Pai and Phrae. The 12-seat single-engine aircraft have been painted in Nok's livery as part of the co-branding or feeder deal.

Massachusetts-based Cape Air earlier this week began carrying JetBlue's code on its Cessna 402 flights from Boston to Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and Provincetown. This is a traditional codeshare deal, in which JetBlue sells some but not all seats on nine-seat twin-engine aircraft painted in Cape Air's livery.

"Look after the children". These are the sobering words written on a sick bag by a passenger on Japan Airlines (JAL) flight 123 on 12 August 1985. The note was written to the man's wife shortly before the Boeing 747 crashed into a mountainside, killing 520 people in the worst single-aircraft accident in history.

Today a copy of the note is displayed on a wall of JAL's Safety Promotion Center, an unusual museum which features reminders of fatal accidents to keep staff aware of the importance of a strong safety culture. The centre is tucked away in a nondescript building in the maintenance district of Tokyo's Haneda airport, from where the aircraft departed on that fateful day in 1985.

On display are huge pieces of the 747's wreckage recovered from Mount Osutaka, on which it crashed. At the far end of the main hall are mangled passenger seats, across from the reconstructed aft fuselage. Nearby is a wall featuring notes to loved-ones from passengers who knew they were about to die. Also behind glass nearby are the aircraft's cockpit voice and flight data recorders, their bright orange exteriors scratched and dented from the crash impact.