Bangkok, Thailand – Today, the airasia Super App has officially launched its e-hailing service, airasia ride, in Bangkok, Thailand. The debut comes shortly after airasia ride announced that it will expand its operations in Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines in the coming quarters. Thailand becomes the second country for airasia ride’s ASEAN expansion, and will offer taxi rides as part of its first phase of entry into the market.
The latest ride in town was officially launched by Amanda Woo, CEO of airasia Super App, Ben-Jie Lim, Head of Delivery airasia and Nirada Tuckawarut, Head of airasia ride Thailand today with a flag-off of airasia ride’s taxi convoy.
There are currently 3,000 drivers registered with airasia ride in Bangkok, with plans to recruit more as the service expands across the city.
In line with the aim to capture the international tourist riders market, the next provinces which airasia ride aims to expand to are holiday destinations such as Phuket and Chiang Mai.
Amanda Woo, CEO of airasia Super App commented, “We are very excited for the launch of airasia ride here in Bangkok today, as it completes the whole airasia Super App ecosystem. Now, an airasia Super App user arriving in Bangkok will have the full end-to-end experience, where they are able to book their flights, hotels and ride to their final destination all within the convenience of one single platform. Since our successful super app launch here in February, we have seen an increase of 53% in new users, mainly driven by our OTA platform, which is our core business and we expect continued healthy growth of new users with the launch of airasia ride today.
“Congratulations to the whole airasia ride team in Thailand for working hard to get this service up and running by this quarter, and we look forward to serving more provinces across the country soon,” added Amanda.
Nirada Tuckawarut, head of airasia ride Thailand, shared, “As we are starting off with taxi service for airasia ride, we are targeting to capture 70% of international tourists arrival into Bangkok, especially with the reopening of borders and resumption of travel post-pandemic.”
“The differentiation that airasia ride will offer is the option for passengers to have options to book our English-speaking drivers community and a fleet of new taxis which will ensure a pleasant travel experience for tourists in Bangkok while using airasia ride. And of course, we also prioritise the drivers’ income opportunity and are happy to share that airasia ride taxi drivers take 100% of the fares they earn, as we do not impose the booking fee on drivers. Furthermore, passengers can be confident when booking airasia ride as our fares are transparent, so come and experience an airasia ride and see you on one of our rides soon,” Tuckawarut added.
In an interview with MARKETECH APAC, Chiew Shan Lim, Regional CEO of airasia ride, shared how airasia ride looks to disrupt e-hailing as it marks regional expansion, Lim said that the company isn’t looking to compete with other competitors like Grab and Gojek in Indonesia, but rather they aim to disrupt the market by filling in the gaps that current players are missing.
“Our mission why we started is we see opportunity in the market and we see that the drivers’ welfare [is] not really really taken care of and customers are being thrown with crazy prizes during traffic jams,” Lim said.
