AirAsia X, the long-haul, low fare affiliate of the AirAsia Group, today confirms the suspension of its services to Male, Maldives due to challenging business conditions effective 1 March, 2014.
The airline will continue to sustain the Colombo, Sri Lanka sector in light of this cancellation and will operate 4 direct weekly flights into Colombo, Sri Lanka from Kuala Lumpur beginning 2 March 2014.
AirAsia X Suspends Flights to Maldives
The suspension of Male, Maldives is a move made to improve operating cost efficiencies and concentrate capacity in AirAsia X key markets of Australia, China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Nepal and Sri Lanka.
AirAsia X will offer guests who hold bookings after these dates an option of a full refund, a reroute to another AirAsia X destination, or a rebook of a return flight prior to 28 February, 2014.
All changes will be made at no additional cost to mitigate the inconvenience caused as a result of the withdrawal. All affected guests will receive an email stating the available options.
Azran Osman-Rani, CEO of AirAsia X said;
“The decision to withdraw from Male was a difficult one, but was made taking into account our business imperative to build sustainable and profitable routes.
Despite our efforts, external factors such as the depreciation of Asian currencies against the US dollar and the chronic lack of hotel room supply in Maldives resulted in cancellation of thousands of bookings by travel operators.”
"As part of our strategy to operate more efficiently, the airline will deploy our aircraft to routes with the right level of demand to be financially viable."
“We have been very grateful for the huge support rendered by Male Airport, Maldives Tourism and relevant authorities and would like to put on record our appreciation for all the cooperation that has been given to us,” concluded Azran.
Conclusion
With AirAsia X suspending flights to the Maldives, the budget airline re-started direct flights from Kuala Lumpur to Maldives with 3 times weekly frequency beginning 22 October 2015.
This time, AirAsia is operating the Maldives flights under AirAsia's AK flights, which is not the long haul AirAsia X.