Jet Airways to expand West Asia service

New Delhi/Mumbai: India’s second-ranked airline by passengers carried, Jet Airways (India) Ltd, has been permitted by the aviation ministry to expand services to West Asia, connecting four Indian cities with Sharjah, raising concern among smaller rivals planning to fly to the region that their large peers are hogging limited, bilaterally negotiated rights.
Jet entered the West Asia market in January last year on expiry of a rule that allowed only the national carrier—National Aviation Co. of India Ltd, or Nacil, that runs the Air India services—to fly to this region. With some six million Indians estimated to be working in the region, with about a quarter of them in the United Arab Emirates, Jet Airways expanded quickly into these lucrative routes as part of its first phase of international expansion that included connections to the US and Europe.
Of the 18 cities it connects internationally now, six are in this region, including Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Doha, Kuwait and Muscat. It plans to add three more cities—Riyadh, Jeddah and Sharjah—to its West Asia network.
Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, Jet Airway’s bigger rival by share of passengers carried, which flies to London, Dhaka and Colombo, does not operate flights to West Asia yet.
A Jet Airways spokeswoman confirmed to Mint that her airline had received permission for flights to Sharjah but declined further detail.
The permissions for Jet Airways from the outgoing government cover daily services to Sharjah from Kochi, Kozhikode (formerly Calicut), Thiruvananthapuram and Mumbai, according to a senior government official who wanted to remain anonymous.
The airline earlier this year started flying the Chennai-Dubai and Mumbai-Kuwait routes even as it cut down on domestic routes.
22/05/09 Tarun Shukla and P.R. Sanjai/Livemint

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Categories: Foreign May 2009, Jet Airways May 2009