Could budget airlines topple Asia's legacy carriers?

Thu, 04/12/2012 - 12:54 — Anonymous by Frances Cha, Seoul EditorTraveling
on budget airlines is a way of life in Europe and North America. But in Asia,
where low-cost carriers have only recently begun cutting into the market
shares of established airlines, their impact on commercial aviation will
likely far surpass anything seen in other markets. Budget operators' share
of the Asian aviation market surged from zero to 25 percent over the past
decade, according to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, which estimates
that there will be 50 budget airlines in the region by the end of 2012, with
approximately 1,000 aircraft on order. "Ten years ago, network airlines
almost universally declared that low-cost carrier operations simply
wouldn't work in the Asia Pacific region, but today nearly all full-service
airlines in the region have their own low-cost offshoots," says Tom
Ballantyne, Hong Kong-based chief correspondent for commercial aviation
magazine Orient Aviation. Peaches freshens up Japanese market The latest
quirkily named and brightly colored, low-cost carrier to debut in the region
is Japan's Peach Aviation -- a partnership between All Nippon Airways (ANA)
and an investment group in Hong Kong -- which inaugurated service in March
with a flight from Osaka to Nagasaki.read more