We’ve never had it so good, travelling around South East Asia, particularly Thailand, with increasing numbers of opportunities to take low cost flights.

Thai Airways International recently announced that it would form a budget airline, Sky Asia, with five domestic partners to fend off competition from a crop of new low-cost carriers. Sky Asia will start operations in the second quarter of this year.

Thai AirAsia, to be launched next month, will also compete with privately owned domestic Thai carriers such as Phuket Air, www.phuketairlines.com Bangkok Airways www.bangkokair.com and PB Air www.pbair.com that has several routes in Thailand including: Lampang, Phetchabun Roi-et, Sakonnakhon, Nakhon Phanom Krabi, Nakhon Si Thammarat and overseas: Danang, Luang Prabang, Bagan.

Another Thai domestic carrier, Orient Thai, http://www.orient-thai.com launched a no-frills airline last month with a one-way ticket to Chiang Mai at half the current Thai Airways market price. Its other routings include Bangkok to Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Phuket, South Korea

Malaysian based Air Asia www.airasia.com says that it is Asia’s first low fare no frills airline to introduce “ticketless” travelling, and has flights within Malaysia and to Singapore and Thailand.

Indonesian based Lion Air currently flies to 32 destinations, including four regional flights connecting Jakarta with Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City. They plan to start selling business class seats underlines its attempt not to position itself as a low-cost carrier. They say: “Our air-fares may be the cheapest, but we reduce costs through the choice of aircraft – single-type MD82, which are bigger than the Boeing 737, commonly used by other domestic airlines.

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