Malaysia's Air Asia has waged a price-reduction fight of air tickets upon its first launch of business in Macao.

The company announced to offer a price of two-way tickets on its new route linking Macao to Bangkok at 436 patacas (US$54.5) beginning from July 5. The ticket sales will be available on June 9 on the Internet or through its ticket booking agencies and telephone hotline services.

Air Asia became the first allied Asian carrier of the Macao International Airport in April. Under a cooperation agreement with the airport, Air Asia will soon launch two flight routes linking Macao with Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok at its initial stage of operation with one daily shuttle-flight on each of the two airlines.

The exposure of the low-cost airline forced the local carrier Air Macao to respond in a sharp price-reduction cutting the price of two-way fare on the Macao-Bangkok line from 3,640 patacas (US$455) to 435 patacas (US$54.4) on a summer promotion.

With an aim to gradually increase low-cost flights linking China to the southeast Asian countries, Air Asia plans to record over 10 million passengers via the Macao airport in the next 10 years.

Although small in scale, the Macao International Airport founded in 1995 is the only air traffic link for the Macao Special Administrative Region, which has a population of 450,000 and over 11 million annual tourist arrivals. It handled a total of 2.9 million passengers last year.

(CNTA.com June 10, 2004)