June 17 – Air India and its sister low-cost airline, Air India Express, is planning to add more flights to the Gulf region, increasing capacity by 15 percent. In fact, the airline also plans to use the newly leased aircraft on the Gulf routes, thus ‘letting go’ of the old Airbus 320s.
“We will be leasing new aircraft. The proposal is for five,” Arvind Jhadav, Chairman and Managing Director of National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL), Air India’s holding company, said in Dubai yesterday.
The announcement is yet another move to restructure the company ever since the government ordered the airline to reduce its losses. “We’re doing a re-rationalising, seeing how the markets are and increase the frequency accordingly. [In the Gulf] we will be increasing capacity by about 15 percent compared to before the cut. We have to see how the markets move,” added Jhadav.
The airline currently has 317 flights to the Gulf from India, and holds 40 per cent of the market on India-Gulf routes.
