AirAsia CEO calls Skymark takeover report rubbish

BINGO ! ; NOW you have a decent AFFORDABLE airline in Japan, FINALLY.

Yikes I would have thought a Malaysian airline company takeover would be a death sentence these days...

Good now start making Skymark cheap like Peach and Jetstar. It used to be the cheapest before those 2 came along.

As a frequent flier I have absolutely no interest in low cost carriers. I hope Skymark goes bankrupt and their slots can be taken by JAL/ANA. I think anyone who likes LCCs is probably only an occaisonal holiday traveller. Just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's a good value. JAL and ANA are not making obscene profits even though they charge more for tickets, because you do in fact get more even if it's not obvious.

@M3M3M3

Just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's a good value.

I'm a terrible flier and I'd rather spend six hours on the shinkansen to Tokyo than take any plane. But it seems to me that if you're only desire is to get from, say, Osaka to Sapporo then the airline that can do it cheapest is, by definition, the best value.

Woops, I RETRACT my previous statement, it WAS " Rubbish ". I misunderstood, I thought Air ASIA was taking over SkyMark. " Nevermind " ! ( Gilda Radner voice )

@lucabrasi

if you're only desire is to get from, say, Osaka to Sapporo then the airline that can do it cheapest is, by definition, the best value.

If all goes well then you may be correct. But if your plane is grounded due to mechanical problems, just wait to see how long it will take for the LCC to get a replacement aircraft (obviously transfering you to another airline or putting you up in a hotel overnight is out of the question for an LCC).

At some point people realise that it's worth paying for more than the bare minimum. I think the real problem is that it's hard for customers to evalute the true value of airline services when you buy a ticket, unlike everday items like clothes or food. This is why you don't see a huge line-up of diners outside of Saizeriya every night even though they are nominally the cheapest.

Well, M3M3M3, I have used Air Asia a lot for flights within South East Asia over the last few years and they have always been on time with new planes and perfectly good service. Of course you pay for any extras like meals and check in baggage but I travel light and for short flights the food is not important. Thus I never pay for any extras and my last flight earlier this month from Penang to Bangkok cost 6,000 yen. There is nothing wrong with Air Asia. Why pay more?

Shares limit up today, we'll see how it goes tomorrow now that the report has been officially denied.

Don't know if I would want to travel long distance with an LCC, but domestically LCCs offer perfectly good value for money, for my occasional holiday travels.

Saying one would not fly low cost is pure ignorance I' m afraid. You are ignoring the fact that it is the future of aviation as it is the present in most developed countries, so get used to it.

Japan' s aviation is about 20 years behind Europe' s and 50 years behind the US, they haven' t found a way to properly run a Low Cost Company yet, and it will take quite a lot of time still, but it will come I can promise you.

Legacy carriers in Europe and US operate short-medium haul (i.e. flights less than 6 hrs) either using Low Cost subsidiaries or within the same airline but on a low cost model anyway.

So, again, get used to Low Cost because in this crazy absurd economical system we live in, it is the only model possible for the future, and will be the future in Japan too..just tailored for the Japanese people and culture.

They may deny it now, but such a merger had been contemplated for some time because it allows AirAsia to get back into the Japanese market in a big way.

I can't help feeling that this whole Skymark escapade of recent has been a wasted opportunity.

Japan needs a powerful third force wtithin the airline industry and one that is seperate from ANA or JAL, Skymark seems to have quite a lot of planes but they are all flying domestically. Although I admire the plan for use of the A380 I wondered at the time how they were going to make it work with no interline agreements in America or Europe.

I think what they should do is accept funding from a foreign carrier and use those newly acquired A330's on regional flights even as far as Australia if they can get government agreement.

Air Asia would be good but last time they were here they hadn't properly translated their website to Japanese and that just annoys people.

No doubt Tony Fernandes will be back but I can't be sure about Skymark, they seem to have an incompetent management.

M3M3M3, I have flown Skymark from Okinawa to Mainland Japan and it is as good as ANA or JAL. You get a seat just like the more expensive airlines. I made the mistake of buying an icecream flying ANA. It was well old and well YUCK! Why pay 2 times for the same product?

This is speculation, in both senses of the word. Such an attempt to inflate the price of Skymark stock will likely go unpunished in Japan despite being illegal. In Japan, white collar criminals are rarely held to account. If people are not held to account for their crimes, then such behavior should not come as a surprise to ordinary good folks.

mataka is right: this is a classic example of pump and dump. With Skymark heading towards bankruptcy someone wanted to offload their shares a.s.a.p. What better way than to plant a story like this.

It should be possible to discover the culprits by looking at who sold their shares yesterday but, of course, nothing will be done.