New Delhi, Jan 24- AirAsia Bhd Group Chief Executive Officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes is optimistic about his India venture taking off soon as well as changing the travel mood of the country with 1.3 billion population.
He sees this as good time to enter the Indian market, according to CNBC-TV18.
“We are the first foreign airline that has ever been allowed to have got this far in India. There are many that want us. There are a few that do not want us. So the process goes on,” he said in his interview with the news channel on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
He said this when asked on the process of starting off and commencing AirAsia India.
“We have recently had the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) approving all our training facilities. We are ready to go. I still believe we can launch in March-April time. We are very, very optimistic about changing travel mood and keeping economic growth in India through our low fares,” said Fernandes.
AirAsia India is a 49:30:21 joint-venture between Air Asia, Tata Group and Arun Bhatia-led Telestra Teleservices. Set-up early last year, it aims to take to the skies in September/October 2013 itself, but a few delays had pushed the potential date now to March/April 2014.
Asked whether AirAsia India had started drawing up a blueprint on its marketing, branding, positioning strategy and fare strategy for the market, he said, “It has gone from blue to faded blue. It has been there for a while.”
The extra time had actually caused the team to learn a little bit more, revamp some of the initial thoughts that it was going to have and confidence grows by the day, he said.
“We are very excited. It is great time to go into India. Most people are pessimistic, I am very optimistic. I go there. People want to travel. There is a migratory workforce.
“There is a huge tourism opportunity which many have avoided, both in internal tourism and external tourism. When I say internal I mean local domestic tourism and international tourism. I remain very bullish and patient.”
Having waited for seven years for the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore route to be opened, he said: “So time is on my side and I believe it is only a matter of weeks.”
– Bernama
