Indian Carriers Add Flights on Gradual Recovery

Mumbai: Kingfisher Airlines Ltd., Jet Airways (India) Ltd. and other Indian carriers are adding flights to meet a gradual revival in air travel demand worldwide, airline executives said.
New flights are being started in sectors that are showing signs of a recovery, executives at Kingfisher, Jet Airways, Air India, SpiceJet Ltd. and IndiGo Airlines told Dow Jones Newswires recently.
"We have plans to open new routes including New Delhi-London and start (more) flights to Dubai, Maldives and Colombo," said Prakash Mirpuri, Kingfisher's vice president for corporate communications.
Mr. Mirpuri added that Kingfisher will soon start flights to Ludhiana and Pantnagar cities in northern India.
Kingfisher returned 11 aircraft to lessors during the year, while Jet cut 25% of its capacity by grounding 5 planes in October 2008. National carrier Air India cut 30 unprofitable flights in the past year.
However, in a sign that demand for air travel is slowly inching up, carriers flew 36 million local passengers during January-October 2009, up 3.3% from a year earlier.
Jet Airways, India's second-biggest carrier by market share, plans to raise its domestic capacity through low-fare arm Jet Konnect, apart from starting international flights such as from Mumbai to Kathmandu.
National carrier Air India said it plans to raise capacity to Riyadh, Muscat, London, Toronto and Paris.
Low-fare carriers SpiceJet and IndiGo said they plan to increase flights with the delivery of one aircraft each early next year.
19/11/09 Anirban Chowdhury/Dowjones/Wall Street Journal

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Nov 2009