AirAsia is strengthening its presence in China with its return to Tianjin and an increase in seats between Kuala Lumpur and Changsha.

Starting December 2, AirAsia’s long haul affiliate AirAsia X will begin its four-times weekly service from Kuala Lumpur to Tianjin using Airbus A330 aircraft. According to Routesonline, the service will be the return of AirAsia to the city since it ended its first run on the route back in June 2012.



With the addition of Tianjin, the airline group will operate 550 weekly flights to 20 destinations in the Chinese mainland from Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines – making it the largest foreign carrier operating in China.

Tianjin is China’s 4th largest city with a population of over 15 million people. It is the largest coastal city in Northern China home to manufacturing companies including European aircraft manufacturer Airbus’s China factory which produces Airbus A320 aircraft. The port of Tianjin hosts a free trade zone and is the maritime gateway to China.

In addition to the new flights to Tianjin, AirAsia will be switching to a larger aircraft on the Kuala Lumpur-Changsha flights with the Airbus A330 starting October 29. The use of the A330s will boost the number of seats on the route to more than 150,000 per year.

In a statement, AirAsia X Malaysia CEO Benyamin Ismail said: “The announcements today of the new and exclusive route between Kuala Lumpur and Tianjin and the capacity increase to Changsha with our larger wide body aircraft will contribute year-round capacity of over 300,000 additional visitor seats in total to China, significantly boosting tourism, trade and economic growth while paving the way towards China’s Year of Tourism and Culture 2020, envisioned by the leaders of both nations.”

“Together with our existing routes into China, today’s announcement means we are further strengthening our foothold in Northern China and increasing our overall capacity to China, one of our fastest growing markets. We will continue to look for expansion opportunities that not only maintain AirAsia Group’s dominance as the largest foreign carrier to China by capacity, but also enable us to remain committed in our quest to making air travel affordable for everyone,” added Benyamin.

Please enable JavaScript to view the comments powered by Disqus.