weekend marked the third major incident involving Southeast Asian airlines this year. In March, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 went missing after it mysteriously deviated from its scheduled flight path from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The plane is believed to have been lost over the southern Indian Ocean near Australia, yet no wreckage has been found. Then, in July, Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 was shot down over eastern Ukraine -- possibly by pro-Russian separatists, although Russia suggested that Ukraine was in some way responsible.
So, are passengers traveling in Southeast Asia rattled? The latest incident has certainly fanned concern that travelers might lose confidence in regional airlines altogether, particularly Malaysian carriers. Yet although Flight QZ8501 was an AirAsia flight, it was operated by Indonesia AirAsia, which is not a Malaysian airline and is instead majority-owned by Indonesian interests. (The AirAsia group has similar minority holdings in subsidiaries in Thailand, the Philippines, India, and, soon, Japan, although these subsidiary airlines use the AirAsia brand).
