Fly Asian Express, a Malaysian airline partly owned by budget carrier tycoon Tony Fernandes, plans to offer long-haul flights to the UK and China at cut-rate fares, an executive said yesterday.
The plan will be unveiled at a news conference tomorrow, the executive told Dow Jones Newswires on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to reveal details beforehand.
He said the local media had wrongly reported that the long-haul budget flights would be operated by AirAsia, the regional no-frills carrier originally founded by Fernandes.
Fernandes is one of the biggest individual shareholders in AirAsia Bhd, and separately owns 50 percent of Fly Asian Express Bhd, which operates turboprop planes in the Malaysian countryside.
Fly Asian Express, also known as FAX, plans to fly from Malaysia to the UK, Europe and China, the executive said, adding that AirAsia, Asia's biggest budget airline, is not involved in the long-haul project.
He said FAX and tycoon Richard Branson's Virgin Atlantic have held only preliminary talks about a tie-up.
The Star newspaper had reported on Monday that AirAsia is in talks with Virgin and another British no-frills airline, easyJet, to form an alliance that will operate long-haul flights at cut rate prices.
From the executive's statements it appeared that the Star report confused between AirAsia and FAX because of Fernandes' ownership in both airlines.
FAX will be the latest airline in Asia to mull offering budget long-haul flights after Oasis Hong Kong Airlines began flights to London from Hong Kong in October.
Fernandes said FAX was in talks with Boeing Co and Airbus to buy or lease wide-bodied jets.
It is not immediately clear how the expansion will be financed.
Subcontract deal
FAX began operations in August when AirAsia subcontracted its rural air rights to the new airline, which operates Fokker 50s and Twin Otters services in eastern Malaysia.
Besides Fernandes, the other major owner of FAX is Kamarudin Meranum, AirAsia's executive director, who holds a 30 percent stake.
Raja Azmi, AirAsia's former chief financial officer, owns the rest.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
CABINET APPROVAL: People seeking assisted reproduction must be assessed to determine whether they would be adequate parents, the planned changes say Proposed amendments to the Assisted Reproduction Act (人工生殖法) advanced yesterday by the Executive Yuan would grant married lesbian couples and single women access to legal assisted reproductive services. The proposed revisions are “based on the fundamental principle of respecting women’s reproductive autonomy,” Cabinet spokesperson Michelle Lee (李慧芝) quoted Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君), who presided over a Cabinet meeting earlier yesterday, as saying at the briefing. The draft amendment would be submitted to the legislature for review. The Ministry of Health and Welfare, which proposed the amendments, said that experts on children’s rights, gender equality, law and medicine attended cross-disciplinary meetings, adding that
RSS