Hong Kong Budget Carrier to Fly to Oakland

New budget long-haul carrier Oasis Airlines, which currently flies between Hong Kong and London, will expand its operations to Oakland, California, in June, the airline's chief executive said Wednesday.

Oasis will operate four direct flights a week to Oakland once it has acquired two more planes from Japan, Stephen Miller said in an interview. The airline will buy a third aircraft by year-end, he said.

Oasis, launched as the world's first long-haul budget airline in October, now owns two Boeing 747-400s. The airline currently offers daily flights between Hong Kong and London's Gatwick airport for as low as HK$1,000 (US$128; euro99) one way.

Miller denied recent reports that the airline is in talks with no-frills carrier easyJet to form a strategic alliance allowing customers to book budget tickets on both airlines.

"We are in regular touch ... if there was an area where we could get together we would. But we feel we'd both like to keep it simple," he told The Associated Press. "There's no real reason to go into an alliance."

An alliance with a European low-cost carrier would not be practical, Miller said, because there will be complicating problems with inter-line rates and administration. It will take a long time for the airlines involved to get paid respectively, he said.

"It's really quite a headache. Both easyJet and ourselves would like to avoid that," he added.

Oasis is aiming at an initial public offering in about three years' time, Miller said.

The executive admitted that the budget carrier suffered a "huge setback" when its inaugural flight turned into a disaster because it was delayed for one day due to a last-minute withdrawal of overflight rights by Russia.

But business in the first nine months of operation has been slightly better than expected, he said, with flights about 75 percent full on average.

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