LONDON, ENGLAND: More than 30,000 tickets priced at £99 or RM499(S$209) one-way have been sold out for AirAsia X's latest London Stansted-Kuala Lumpur route.

As at 10pm yesterday (Malaysian time), the airline's website showed that economy seats from RM579 were still available but "were selling fast".

It is learnt that about 12,000 seats were snapped up during the first 12 hours when online bookings opened at 8pm on Tuesday.

With nearly 100 seats bought every five minutes during the first day of sales, the cheapest ones quickly ran out.

"The response has been fantastic. The first 12,000 seats sold were split equally between those travelling from Malaysia to London and vice versa," said one source.

Based on 30% of the 286 seats in each flight being offered at the promotional rate of £99, there would have been 95 available at the lowest fare.

The 286 seats include 30 premium (XL) leather, fully reclinable seats with extra legroom priced at £549 (RM1,999).

Black Cab driver David Chan said he had problems booking the cheapest seats to fly back to his hometown of Segamat for the Qing Ming Festival in April.

"I just couldn't get through to the booking procedure due to the heavy traffic. But at RM579 (£179), it's still a bargain," he added.

Bookings will close on Sunday for the five-times-a-week direct flights which will be for the travel period between March 11 and Oct 24.

The route sales were jointly launched by AirAsia Group CEO Datuk Seri Tony Fernandes and AirAsia X CEO Azran Osman-Rani in London on Tuesday.