European woes, Air Asia X delays

Malaysia's long-haul budget carrier says it may delay launch

Datuk Tony Fernandes:

I see that all your efforts of getting Air Asia X up this year has been greeted with more challenges. No matter, we still look forward to Air Asia X, particularly on how this business would fair in the global market.

So that's a big blow to VMY2007, we might not get as many Europeans as we'd love to this year. How about charting all the other direct routes from Europe to Malaysia? Don't get what I mean?

Cheaper air tickets from Helsinki to Thailand was also another reason for travellers to chose Thailand, said Jaana Nystrom, director of sales and production from a company, Helin Matkat here. [Sources: The Star]

Somehow I feel that that's not the only reason why people prefer Thailand than Malaysia but hey, that's a start if somebody wonders why Thailand gets more European visitors.

As a comparison,

The European market has long been a major bedrock of Thai tourism. Of the 11,650,703 visitor arrivals in 2004, a total of 2,616,347 arrivals were from Europe, a market share of 22.46% and an increase of 15.96% over 2003. [Source: Traveldailynews.com]

The 673,000 or 3.8% of the 17.5 million tourist arrivals to Malaysia last year were from Europe. [Source: The Star]

Ok la, maybe different years but hey, that's when Tsunami struck wasn't it? Get your FACTs right, I certainly think I got mine right this time.