PLANS FOR JET AIRWAYS HUB AT BENGALURU

India’s largest private full-service carrier Jet Airways has revealed its intention to make Bengaluru its third hub in the country, after Mumbai and Delhi, in a bid to make the most of the burgeoning opportunities here. While the airline has not yet announced the exact timeline for this plan, it has reposed more faith in the Bengaluru airline market.

“Bengaluru’s rise as a prominent global investment destination, apart from its large young working population, has resulted in significant growth in aviation traffic, both inbound and outbound, domestic and international. Today, the city houses India’s third busiest airport, which hopefully, will rise to at least the second position in future,” Jet Airways Vice President, Commercial, India Sales, Praveen Iyer said that with this view, the airline intends to make its presence felt here and to turn it into a hub sometime in the months to come. Airline hubs or hub airports are used by an airline to concentrate passenger traffic and flight operations at that given airport, which in turn, serves as transfer or stop-over points to get passengers to their final destination. “The ratio of traffic to population in Bengaluru stands at a robust 1.6. Bengaluru has a population of 12 million, recording annual air traffic of 19 million and this is continuously growing,” he said. The Bengaluru market, which is growing at 30 per cent year-on-year, has the ability to take on more departures, considering that the other metros are largely

saturated. Also, it provides a gateway to regional points, apart from links to metros and Tier-II cities.