Asia-Pacific Budget Carriers Form Alliance
by Neelam Mathews May 20 2016 From left to right, bottom row: Katsuya Goto, president of Vanilla Air; Robert Sharp, CEO of Tigerair Australia; Lee Lik Hsin, CEO of Tigerair, Campbell Wilson, CEO of Scoot; Piya Yodmani, CEO of Nok Scoot; Patee Sarasin, CEO of Nok Air; Ken Choi, CEO of Jeju Air and Michael Szucs, CEO executive adviser of Cebu Pacific In a bid to tap burgeoning unserved regional markets, eight Asia Pacific budget carriers have launched the largest budget airline alliance in the world. Airlines in the group, called Value Alliance, served more than 47 million passengers from 17 hubs in 2015, while rivals AirAsia Malaysia and its subsidiaries flew more than 51 million passengers. Founding Value members include Cebu Pacific, Jeju Air, Nok Air, NokScoot, Scoot, Tigerair Singapore, Tigerair Australia and Vanilla Air. The formation of the alliance represents a response to access to new markets and secondary airports resulting from the Associati...