KUALA LUMPUR: AirAsia Group Bhd believes domestic tourism will bounce back as there is still a demand for air travel within Malaysia.
The group's founder and chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said this could be seen with the robust numbers in ticket sales amidst its continued expansion of routes.
He said this year, the group added 32 new routes as a group, and these included some second-tier destinations, smaller cities and non-state capital routes.
"We are getting record numbers of tickets to Langkawi and Penang. When Sarawak and Sabah (re)open, we think a lot of Semenanjung people will visit places they never visited before.
"I think domestic tourism is one of the plus points, and I think people are seeing what a great country this is. And hopefully this will continue.
"We've opened 32 new routes as a group such as Kuching-Langkawi, Sibu-Langkawi this year; (and these are) all domestic routes. Domestic tourism is certainly moving in the right direction," he told the New Straits Times Press during the low cost carrier's annual visit to media houses in conjunction with the holiday season.
Fernandes drew similarities with its push to provide services to smaller Malaysian cities and its push to expand its food and grocery delivery arm, outside of the Klang Valley.
"AirAsia is always about going to secondary and tertiary cities, We were the first to fly to Tawau and Sandakan directly from KL. We were the first to fly to Bandung.
"So while KL always has the best services, we want to give good services to the smaller cities, so they can have the same quality of services as KL people."
When commenting on the government's move to reduce the mandatory quarantine period from 14 to 10 days for people arriving in Malaysia, Fernandes said it was a move that would lead to good things.
"I think that it's great. I hope it'll be reduced to seven days.
"I also hope that we present our stastistics... you know, there are three groups right now (in relation to the daily new Covid-19 figures). There are community cases, there are prisoners and then there are foreign workers.
"If you take out prisoners and foreigners, the numbers in the community is much less (than the other two groups), but people on the outside are seeing the big number and think there is much more Covid-19.
"We're glad that antigen testing is coming. We think testing is more important than the vaccine. I commend (Science, Technology and Innovation Minister) Khairy (Jamaluddin), the prime minister and the government for getting the vaccine in.
"All these things are making things better for the travel industry," said Fernandes.
He said even the news of Malaysia's international borders opening up, particularly to regional neighbours, would spell some good news for AirAsia and other players in commercial aviation industry.
"Someone did ask us, 'Are you ready?'. We're ready. It's like being in a cage for a long time. We're raring to get out.
"Our bonus side is our logistics. It's very strong at the moment. Our cargo is strong, and now we are doing food delivery. We are looking forward to better prospects next year, but we haven't gotten to those pre-2020 (revenue levels) yet," he said.
Earlier, Fernandes and his team were ushed into Balai Berita by senior management staff.
He had a brief discussion with New Straits Times group editor Ahmad Lokman Mansor, Berita Harian group editor Saidon Idris and Harian Metro group editor Husain Jahit, before presenting the three newspapers with food in conjunction with Christmas and the New Year.
Fernandes arrived at Balai Berita here on a bicycle carrying some food contributions from AirAsia's food delivery arm, with his entourage in tow.
