Budget airline Air Asia X has announced that they’re restarting international flights from Malaysia to Australia for the first time since 2020.
Flights will begin departing from Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Auckland from November 1.
The airline will be running flights three times a week to each city, and gradually increase the number of flights until early 2023.
Chief Executive Officer of AirAsia X Benyamin Ismail has said that the airline is looking forward to “making long-haul air travel affordable once again” for Australians and New Zealanders.
“In 2019, we flew over a million guests to both countries, which shows that Australia and New Zealand are important markets for us and we connected the same number of Australians and New Zealanders to Malaysia and across ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations),” he said.
“As the world reopens and travel restrictions ease, we are confident these new services will prove popular.”
In the same statement, Ismail said that the airline will start flights to the aforementioned cities, but is looking to add more local destinations in the future. “We will bring back everyone’s favourite destinations and even more in the near future.”
One-way economy fares to Kuala Lumpur with AirAsia X start from $309 from Perth and Melbourne.
While the additional flights are welcome news to those looking to head off on an international holiday, Australian airlines have been struggling to keep up with the high demand in recent weeks.
Just last week, popular airline Qantas told passengers to expect flight delays and cancellations in the coming days. Qantas – who own the budget airline Jetstar – has said between the two brands they had 350,000 people scheduled to fly to Australia between last Saturday and tomorrow. In the seven days prior, only 85% of their domestic flights departed within an hour of their scheduled time.
“Our on-time performance isn’t where it needs to be, but we’re continuing to make changes,” a Qantas spokesperson said.

The spokesperson chalked the delays and cancellations down to severe weather in NSW and a spike in COVID and flu cases, and said that sick leave from staff is expected to continue over the coming days.

“We thank customers for their patience during what is traditionally a very busy time and thank our people for their hard work over these school holidays and beyond,” a Qantas spokesman said.

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