Lucky Air (China) (8L, Dali) is considering establishing a base in Thailand, its first such move in a market outside of China.

The HNA Group budget unit's marketing director, Jiang Shuqiang, told Routesonline last month that given its successful strategy of securing market share by focusing on China's Tier II and III cities, Lucky Air had now grown bold enough to now focus on the Asian market at large.

“We have already transitioned from full-service carrier to an LCC, and now we need to explore some new cities according to the economics, population, and resources the city can provide," he said. "Maybe our next step will be to use a hub in Thailand as our first overseas base."

Lucky Air uses focus cities and bases around China to feed traffic into its two main hubs of Kunming Changshui and Chengdu Shuangliu. According to Jiang, the LCC will add South Asia and islands routes to the former with the latter set to see service to the Americas, Africa and Western Asia.