Jet Airways set to take its flight to South Africa

New Delhi: India’s largest airline by passengers, Jet Airways (India) Ltd, is set to become the country’s first carrier to fly to South Africa.
The airline is also entering into an agreement with Kenya Airways to connect to the northern regions of Africa, coinciding with India’s recent thrust to improve economic diplomacy in the continent.
An official in the aviation ministry said Jet Airways is keen to begin flying to South Africa ahead of the football World Cup that begins on 11 June.
The official, who didn’t want to be named, said Jet Airways has sought the ministry’s approval to start non-stop daily flights from Mumbai to Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city.
“Earlier, we had a clause in the bilateral rights with South Africa which restricted flight for only one carrier to fly from Mumbai,” the ministry official said. “That was lifted some time back. Now anyone can fly (to South Africa).”
Jet Airways still needs a formal clearance from the ministry.
Right now, only Air India and South African Airways connect India to South Africa. Air India doesn’t fly to the country, but it has a code-share agreement with South African Airways, which flies four times a week on the Mumbai-Johannesburg route.
Code-sharing is a ticket-selling alliance that allows travellers to connect seamlessly to destinations on flights of more than one airline. But there still is a huge potential to be tapped, both in terms of non-resident Indians and people of Indian origin as well as young Kenyans flying to India for studies, said analysts. A Jet Airways official said the airline plans to initially use the wide-body Airbus A330 planes to fly to South Africa. He declined to give more details.
Another Jet Airways official said the airline has enough spare A330 planes in its fleet to start services to South Africa.
14/01/10 Tarun Shukla/Live Mint

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Categories: Foreign Jan 2010, Jet Airways Jan 2010