As you can see from this portion of the Wikipedia entry on AF447, the A320 (the one that just disappeared) also has a history of pitot-related issues, dating to 2007 at Air France.
So have the A320's in the Air Asia fleet been modified with the recommended Airbus modifications? Was there an airworthiness directive, or similar directive to replace the defective systems, and if so, did Air Asia comply with it? So far it looks like QZ8501 was flying in similar circumstances to AF447; that is to say at cruise near thunderstorms.
-----
Pitot tubes
After May 2008, nine previous incidents involving the temporary loss of airspeed indication appeared in the Air Safety Reports (ASRs) for Air France's A330/A340 fleet. All occurred in cruise between flight levels FL310 and FL380. The first problem was reported on May 2008 and the latter two on March 2009, one of them the first event on an A330. Further, after F-GZCP accident, Air France has identified six additional incidents which had not been reported on ASRs. These were intended for maintenance Aircraft Technical Logs (ATLs) drawn up by the pilots to describe these incidents only partially, to indicate the characteristic symptoms of the incidents associated with unreliable airspeed readings.[163][164] The problems primarily occurred in 2007 on the A320 but, awaiting a recommendation from Airbus, Air France delayed installing new pitot tubes on A330/A340 and increased inspection frequencies in these planes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_France_Flight_447
Air Asia confirmed that the pilots requested deviation due to weather.