Festival weekend sees scramble for plane seats

New Delhi: The long weekend is bringing smiles to the faces of most promoters of domestic airlines.
From the state-owned Air India (domestic) to India’s first five-star airline, Kingfisher — all are reporting a “huge demand” for travel over the festive season.
Sources told Business Line that passengers wanting to fly AI (domestic) from the Capital would find it difficult to get seats to Goa, Bagdogra, Kolkata, Bhubaneswar and Srinagar till Monday at least.
From Chennai, the preferred destinations on Air India (domestic) include Kuala Lumpur, Delhi, Port Blair and Madurai, while Bangalore residents seem to be heading for Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata and Goa, sources added. The airline is receiving close to 30,000 booking requests daily and is now carrying more than 27,000 passengers a day during the festive and long weekend period.
Jet Airways is reporting heavy passenger demand on several routes including Delhi-Chennai, Bangalore-Kolkata, Mumbai-Chennai and Mumbai-Bangalore among others.
“There has been a system-wide increase in passenger loads.
“On the weekend of the 17th and 18th this month, the average number of passengers carried was 50,000. Over the forthcoming weekend, we should cross that figure, going by present trends,” a spokesperson for Jet Airways told Business Line.
A Kingfisher Airline spokesperson also confirmed that it was seeing a “healthy increase in demand” for seats not only over the next three days but also previously and in the weeks ahead.
26/09/09 Ashwini Phadnis/Business Line

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Sep 2009