Budget Flights Could Soon Go Global

Virgin and easyJet could team up with an Asian airline to create the world’s first budget global network. Richard Branson’s Virgin and easyJet’s Stelios Haji-Ioannou will join forces with AirAsia to form a Malaysia-based alliance, the south-east Asian country’s Star newspaper says.

It quoted unidentified industry sources as saying the new joint venture would first fly between Kuala Lumpur and Manchester, and Amritsar in India.

And the alliance – if it decided to fly to London as well – could also use Luton airport as a hub because Virgin already operated a rail link from there to central London.

Fares to Britain will be between pounds 43 and pounds 365, about half the price of a ticket on a regular airline, it added. It said the alliance would give Virgin and easyJet access to Kuala Lumpur’s low-cost airport terminal, the gateway to a dream Asian hub for their Europe-to-Australia routes.

Sir Richard is in talks with AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes and recently-knighted Greek-British tycoon Sir Stelios. Plans could include flights to Hangzhou near Shanghai, China, and Tianjin near Beijing.

The newspaper quoted a source familiar with the discussions as saying fares on the long-haul network would be as low as pounds 14 for destinations in China.

EasyJet, which started in 1995, flies 224 routes between 67 European airports including Britain. Virgin carries around five million passengers a year. Its airlines include Virgin Atlantic, which flies to 27 destinations worldwide, and Virgin Nigeria Airways. AirAsia, which started in 2001 with two planes, now has a fleet of 50 aircraft and flies to destinations in South-East Asia and China.

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