In the growing battlefield of low cost carriers in the Far East, two new ventures have come out of the traps.
First Up is NokScoot – a 51%/49% joint venture between Nok Air of Thailand and FlyScoot of Singapore.
Thailand’s Nok Air and Singapore-based Scoot have today announced plans to set-up a new low-cost carrier in the Asia-Pacific region.
Subject to approval, the airline will be branded NokScoot and will operate widebody aircraft on medium and long-haul international routes, with the airline based out of Dong Mueang airport in Bangkok, with the airline targeting routes to East Asia, Japan, Korea and North China.
The airline will be operating Boeing 777-200ERs from Scoots fleet.
Meanwhile, Tiger Airways is also expanding with the announcement that TigerAir Taiwan will be joining the low-cost party.
This joint venture is made up 10% TigerAir, and 90% of China Airlines of Taiwan (not to be confused with Air China)
Operations have yet to be confirmed, but services between Taiwan, Japan and Korea are expected, with other destinations in Asia.
No entry into service has been given, but “end of 2014” is being bounded around as a start date. Whilst the fleet has not been announced, TigerAir has mostly operated Airbus A320 family aircraft.
As more LCC’s form in the Asia area, there is a lot of pent up demand for reasonable value travel – for people who don’t want fly the tradition airlines, rather focusing on cost. Whilst there is room for growth, the big players – as well as the smaller players are making a go for every passenger they can get onto their planes.
The fashion of a Joint-Venture is definitely in vogue as carriers pair up together for a lower cash injection, whilst getting the results they want (be it in fleet, brand image etc).
All the makings of interesting times ahead…
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