With the major tourism market of China still mostly sealed off from the rest of the world, AirAsia, the budget carrier of Capital A Bhd, is turning to India to make up the shortfall.
“India is definitely a very, very important market,” AirAsia Malaysia Chief Executive Officer Riad Asmat said on the sidelines of the Aviation Festival Asia in Singapore on Tuesday. “China, I’m not saying it’s not, but at the current state, we have to work around what we have,” he said.
The Malaysian airline that typically focuses on the Southeast Asian market is seeing high demand from Indian passengers traveling to countries like Malaysia and Indonesia, he said. Asmat said that on a flight he recently took to Bali, Indian tourists made up about 90% of passengers.
