Kuala Lumpur – AirAsia’s new service, GoCorporate, has set the ball rolling for the Asian business travel market to see low-cost carriers (LCCs) as a potentially viable alternative to legacy carriers.

AirAsia claims GoCorporate will empower organisations to set their own corporate travel policies and benefit from its everyday low fares.

Corporations which handle more than 500 flight sectors per year can register for AirAsia GoCorporate. Successful sign-ups will be assigned a personalised GoCorporate website and a unique company account identifier which is password-protected. The personalised easy-to-use and book website contains information related to the travel needs of the respective organisations, and allows them to have more control over their travel planning.

AirAsia’s group chief officer, Mr Tony Fernandes, said: “GoCorporate is for corporations that want to save on day-to-day staff travelling expenses, while being able to conduct their cross-border transactions. GoCorporate is also for organisations that wish to eliminate valuable time spent on administration and paper work to focus instead on activities that will add value to the company.” Joining GoCorporate thus far are MNCs such as GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceutical, Silverlake System and Resorts World.

While corporate travel agents have no doubt that AirAsia has the technology to offer this service, many appear hesitant to say GoCorporate will be a roaring success.

Mitra Tours & Travel CEO, Tunku Iskandar, said as the service was still new, it was hard to gauge the space it would occupy in the business travel world. He observed that due to its need to keep the unit cost base low, AirAsia’s services could be quite restrictive for the corporate traveller.

Sime Darby Travel general manager, Ms Margaret Mah, added while some organisations would weigh the benefit of a better bottomline against the inconvenience of restricted timing and unreliability. “Unless and until schedules are reliable and in place, corporate travellers, particularly MNCs, will choose to pay a premium for the extra value”. Holiday Tours and Travel corporate manager, Mr Robert Lim, believes LCCs will give corporations an option. “However, air tickets are only one part of the equation. What about itineraries, multisector travel, visas, car hire, insurance and packages?

“LCCs will need public confidence in a product which can feed into the existing travel pattern of corporates,” he said.