ASIA’S largest low-cost carrier AirAsia Bhd is looking forward to the establishment of a single aviation market in Asean so that airlines can mobilise their resources jointly to ensure air travel remains efficient and effective.
The airline’s chief executive officer Aireen Omar said although the Asean Open Skies policy is already in effect, there should be a harmonisation of standards across the region in terms of airline-related licensing, certification, training and safety standards to name a few.
There must be a collaboration between air traffic authorities so that there is an efficient highway for the aircraft to fly in the region and costs should be standardised by all Asean countries, she said.
“We think that’s the key to mobilise resources and achieve economies of scale. It will create more traffic, thus boosting businesses, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It would also facilitate newer markets or new destinations like secondary or tertiary cities to be well connected through air travel,” said Aireen in an interview with Business Times recently.
She said the Ministry of Transport and the Department of Civil Aviation are at the forefront in trying to get all Asean nations to standardise training and safety requirements for airlines based in the region.
Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam had agreed to be part of the Asean Open Skies Policy in April.
The policy or agreement provides a free environment for airlines based in the Asean region to operate across the region. Airlines are able to operate unlimited flights from their home base to various points in the region, subject to the availability of airport slot.
However, currently, the Asean Open Skies agreement is only up to the fifth freedom instead of ninth freedom like in Europe, said Aireen.
“We hope that it moves towards the ninth freedom. It’s important to have a single aviation market because full open skies will be meaningless without single aviation market,” she added.
The Freedoms of Air are international commercial aviation agreements that allow a country’s airline to enter and land in another country.
The agreement, formulated in 1944 during the Chicago Convention, has nine freedom rights.
The fifth freedom right allows airlines to carry passengers from its home country (country A) to disembark them into another country (country B). The airlines are also allowed to carry passengers from country B to other international destinations.
A simple example is in the case of Airline ABC which carries passengers from its home base in Malaysia to Dubai and from Dubai to London.
The ninth freedom right, on the other hand, gives airlines the right to carry passengers outside of its home base, usually in a certain destination in a foreign country to another destination in the same foreign country.
For example Airline ABC is allowed to carry passengers from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, which is not its home base, to Sabah which is also located in Malaysia.
With over 600 million population, Asean offers huge potential for the aviation industry players and AirAsia, a strong airline in the region, is ready to connect more cities, particularly the secondary and tertiary cities in the region.
The airline is able to connect the cities due to its strong hubs in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand as well as China and India.
“We are very strong in Asean. That is our backyard. With our various joint ventures that we have in the region, we work as a group to strengthen that position.”
“We have built various hubs. We have strengthened the hubs. We connect all the dots or points that have been established by all our joint-venture groups and linking them up by adding frequency or introducing new routes or even new destinations,” said Aireen.