AirAsia X to move to Gatwick

Second-ranked UK airport larger and has more links than present one

PETALING JAYA: AirAsia X (AAX), which flies six times weekly to London by way of Stansted airport, will move its base to Gatwick, which is Britain's second largest airport from late-October this year.

Sources said the announcement is likely to be made today from London and the move is for commercial reasons. The major consideration for the move is said to be Gatwick's offer of “irresistible rates” to AAX for landing and parking at the airport.

Another advantage of Gatwick is that it has a larger number of transiting passengers and connecting flights, compared with Stanstead.

Apart from Gatwick, Machester airport had also been courting AAX for some time now, the sources said.

Stansted is the third busiest airport in Britain and has been AAX's first point of entry into Europe since 2008.

Another plus for AAX moving to Gatwick is that it is closer to the city, making travel into London easier for passengers.

Apart from London, the only other point in Europe that AAX flies to is Paris via Orly International Airport.

London Heathrow, which is Britain's largest airport, is of course out of reach for AAX because of the high parking and landing rates the British airport demands and getting timing slots would be a challenge. Even the two British low cost carriers Ryanair and easyJet fly from Stansted and Gatwick respectively. Heathrow is the fourth busiest in the world, handling up to 65 million passengers a year. The busiest in the world is Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson Airport in Georgia, which handled 89 million passengers last year, followed by Beijing at 79 million, and Chicago O'Hare Airport with 66 million as at last year.

Gatwick is also home to British Airways, easyJet, Emirates, Monarch, Thomas Cook, Thomson and Virgin. A total of 90 carriers operate from that airport and according to its website, it is the “best connected point to point airport in Europe'' handling 32 million passengers a year flying to more than 200 destinations.

Stansted has 12 airlines flying from the airport and last year handled 18.8 million passengers.

AAX, which took its first flight in November 2007, has flown more than five million passengers and now wants to double the figures in two years' time. It will take delivery of five new Airbus A330 which it intends to deploy across the Asia-Pacific and Middle-East regions.

The airline in June got the government's nod to fly to five new destinations, namely Beijing, Osaka, Shanghai, Jeddah and Istanbul. However, the route that it really wants, KL-Sydney, is still beyond its reach for now.

Chief executive officer Azran Osman-Rani expects the airline to fly two new routes within a 12-month timeframe. The airline now flies to 15 cities, namely Hangzhou, Tianjin, Chengdu, Bombay, Delhi, Seoul, Tokyo, London, Paris, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth, Tehran, Christchurch and Wellington.