AI Express to cancel some Gulf services, add to domestic routes

Mumbai: The financial crunch at Air India is taking a toll on its subsidiary Air India Express which has now decided to pull out a few international flights and deploy them on domestic routes in the country.
Air India Express will pull out flights from routes in the Gulf and South-East Asia among which are Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. The redeployment of these international flights will be in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. This process will take place around September this year with Air India Express functioning as a low-cost service.
A senior Air India official confirmed that the company is already working on a low-cost model. “We noticed that travellers, especially corporates, have switched over to low-cost airlines from full service carriers on many domestic sectors,” he added.
Tara Naidu, chief of commercial at Air India Express told ET: “Air India has drawn up a strategy where the merged entity Air India (the Indian Airlines-Air India combine) will emerge as a full-service carrier and Air India Express will be our low-cost service and both will continue to fly domestic and internationally.”
01/07/09 Mithun Roy/Economic Times

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Categories: Air India budget Jul 2009, Foreign Jul 2009, NACIL Jul 2009