AirAsia offering 100,000 free seats to Thailand

Budget carrier AirAsia is offering 100,000 free seats to/from Bangkok Suvarnabhumi International Airport, and Phuket in Thailand, to lure back foreign visitors after a siege of Bangkok's airports by anti-government protesters.

Seats in the "Mai Phen Rai Thailand" promotion are available for three days between Wednesday 17 December and Friday 19 December, and cover services from Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Jakarta, Macau, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore and Vietnam, as well as from Thailand itself.

One hundred thousand tickets on AirAsia will be issued and are valid between Jan. 6 and March 31, 2009, the discount airline said. Passengers have to pay any taxes and fees.

For full details of this offer click here, or visit the AirAsia website and choose country as Thailand.

"Thailand is a great place in the world to visit. I am optimistic," the airline's chief executive officer Tony Fernandes told reporters in Bangkok late Tuesday.

Protesters lifted an eight-day siege of Bangkok's international and domestic airports on December 3. The blockade left around 350,000 passengers stranded in the country and images of exhausted tourists sleeping on baggage check-in belts led to predictions that tourist numbers could fall by half next year.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) said AirAsia's free seats campaign would help draw foreign visitors back to the country faster and boost the Thai economy next next year.