Growing traffic between Chennai and Southeast Asia spurs airlines to expand services

Chennai: With significant increases in business and leisure travel between Chennai and Southeast Asia and the Far East in the past year, airlines are looking to expand their services to the region in the coming months. The popular Chennai-Singapore route will be a particular target: there will be an additional 3,700 seats every week on this sector in 2008.
Singapore Airlines is introducing its second day-time flight out of Chennai in April, which will operate four times a week — this will be its 11th weekly flight. “There’s actually enough traffic on this sector for Singapore Airlines to even have three day-time flights every day, but we are constrained by traffic rights,” said Bharath Mahadevan, Manager (Southern India), Singapore Airlines.
The airline had a load factor of around 85 per cent last year on its flights out of Chennai, and traffic increased by around 15 per cent.
Other airlines have enjoyed similar success: Singapore-based low-cost carrier Tiger Airways introduced flights to Chennai last October, and will operate four flights a week in 2008. Jet Airways and Air India Express already operate daily flights, and they are both set to expand their operations this year.
The new services will see the addition of around 3,700 seats every week out of Chennai, increasing current capacities by more than half.
31/01/08 The Hindu

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Categories: Foreign Jan 2008, Indian Aviation- In General Jan 2008