Examples of Air Asia has used Cost Leadership

Marketing mix is a general phrase used to describe the different kind of choices
organizations have to make in the whole process of bringing a product or service to
market. Marketing mix was first depressed in 1960 by E J McCharthy.
(Manktelow,2014)
P r
ro d
d u
u c
ct
t

4
P

p ric e

P la c e

P ro m o t io n

1. Product/ Service
A product is anything that can be offered to the market for attention, acquisition,
use or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. (Armstrong & Kotler, 2012)
The term of product refers to tangible or physically as well as service.
Air Asia introduced a lot of value-added services:
i. Ticketless booking
It was the first airline in Asia which used ticketless booking. This service
launched on March 2012. Consumers can book the tickets via online. Air
Asia explains that with ticketless travel, passengers will be issued a
booking number when booking is completing made. The flight itinerary
with their travel details will after be emailed, faxed or handed to them
when payment had been made. The passengers are only required show the
printed

boarding

pass

through

website

to

check

in

purpose.

(BreakingTravelNews, 2002). By this service, passengers and Air Asia

may save the cost and time.

ii.

Easy payment channel

Easy to Book, Easy to Pay and Easy to Fly Air Asia launched this
approach to convenient the consumers. Air Asia allows consumers to pay
for their bookings by credit card or debit card over the mobile Customer
also can go Alliance bank to pay the ticket fees by cash. (Onwutalobi &

iii.

Claret.A, 2008)
Frequent flight
To ensure consumers convenient, Air Asia provides high frequency
services. The airline practices quick and frequent flights a day. Air Asia
provides 25 minutes turnaround and be recognized is the fastest in the
region. (Onwutalobi & Claret.A, 2008) Since the case MH-370 missing,

iv.

Air Asia is now providing more schedules to the passengers.

Nationwide call centre
This service launched in April 2002. AirAsias Nationwide call centre in
Kelana Square is now fully equipped with 180 telephone lines. It provides
convenient telephone booking services to guests. The call centre now takes
an average of 6,000 calls daily. (Onwutalobi & Claret.A, 2008)

2. Price
Pricing is the most significant practices that differs low cost carrier. Air Asia is the
one of the company that succeeds in low cost carrier business. Air Asia provides
full service regional airlines that offered slightly lower fares than other airlines in
Malaysia. Cost of flying on low cost airlines can be cheaper by about 40% to
50%. Air Asia is practicing cost leadership by innovative strategy. To encourage
consumers to early book, Air Asia undertakes regular fare promotions for specific
period. Based on Dato Tony Fernandez said, Air Asia can be growing by using
cost leadership strategy in the airline business if they can control their cost. The
cost that they have to running their business must be efficient and also reliable.
They have to eliminate and reduce everything that can be make inefficiencies and
insufficiencies. (Catatanraufmendunia,2009)
3. Place
Place can be defined as the distribution or location where getting the products to
the customer, service delivered or whether they need to collect the product or

service. Currently, Air Asia flies to 12 destinations in Malaysia, using a fleet of

seven Boeing 737-300s. By the end of the next fiscal year, it will have added four
or five new domestic destinations, and increased the frequency of flights to
existing ones. More interestingly, it will have started flying to secondary airports
near Bangkok, Manila, Jakarta, and Hong Kong. The goal of Air Asia is to
increase the fleet to 18 by June 2004, equivalent to the delivery of one aircraft a
month beginning in September 2004. Air Asia made Kota Kinabalu airport its
base for flights to the Philippines and Hong Kong, and Senai airport in Johor
Bahru for flights to Thailand and Indonesia. (Onwutalobi & Claret.A, 2008)
4. Promotion
Promotion can be defines as short term incentives to encourage the purchase or
sale of a product or service. (Armstrong & Kotler, 2012) Air Asia has smaller
budget for the advertisement. Air Asia uses a lot of promotions to stimulate
market demand. Air Asia offered air fare at no cost or free for ten thousand seats
to celebrate their third year anniversary. Besides, Air Asia endorsing and be
sponsorship of famous football team, Manchester United and also car races team,
Formula One. Air Asia uses the publicity such as having its logo on the jerseys to
promote their services which is at no cost to the company. (Jafari S.M & Vasili.M,
2006) Air Asia also heavily involves in charitable activities such as providing
assistance to the victims of disasters in Myanmar and China to promote the
publicity of the company.

References List
Armstrong, G & Kotler, P. (2012), Marketing: an introduction: Global Edition: Prentice
Hall
BreakingTravelNew (2002), Air Asia Goes Ticketless and Launches
EASY TO PAY Channels, assessed by 26 May 2014
http://www.breakingtravelnews.com/news/article/btn40000428/
Catatanraufmendunia (2009), the Air Asia Company Strategic management: How Air Asia can be
a leader in the lowest cost carrier in the airplane industry, management of Technology, assessed
by 27 May 2014

http://itsaboutmymot.wordpress.com/2009/08/31/the-airasia-company-strategicmanagement-%E2%80%9C-how-airasia-can-be-a-leader-in-the-lowest-cost-carrier-inthe-airplane-industry%E2%80%9D/
Jafari S.M & Vasili.M, (2006), Market Entry of A Low Cost Carrier: The experience and
impacts of Air Asia, International Marketing Management Conference, assessed by 27
May 2014
http://www.smjafari.webs.com/2006-IRMMC_SMJafari.pdf
Manktelow A (2014), The Marketing Mix and 4 Ps: Understanding Hot
to Position Your Market Offering, mindtools, assessed by 25 May 2014
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_94.htm

Onwutalobi & Claret.A, (2008), Understanding Marketing Mix in Air Asia Airline Bhd,
Codewit, assessed by 25 May 2014
http://www.codewit.com/articles/cgn/Understanding%20Marketing%20Mix%20in
%20Air%20Asia%20Airline%20Bhd%20by%20Onwutalobi%20Anthony-Claret.pdf