KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA: AirAsia will start its twice-daily flights between the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) and Singapore's Changi Airport today.

The budget carrier' chief executive officer Datuk Tony Fernandes said the response so far had been impressive with an encouraging volume of bookings both ways.

"It will be a big day for us. The reality that we are finally flying to Singapore has not sunk in yet as we had been waiting for this for a long time," he told reporters here yesterday.

He said this after signing an MOU with Tafe College Seremban to complement AirAsia's current engineering programme conducted at the AirAsia Academy.

AirAsia's flights to Singapore would depart here at 10am and 7.50pm and its return flight would be at 11.30am and 9.40pm.

Fernandes said Malaysia Airlines had held AirAsia back on the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore route.

"Why can't there be two national champions? Don't stop us from opening routes. We never stopped them. It is not about the money but as Malaysians, we should be competing and taking on world airlines," he said.

Fernandes also said AirAsia hoped to fly to India by this year.