Mahan Air eyes Mumbai, Hyd runway
Mahan Air completes 15 years in India and is looking at expansion with increased frequencies to Delhi and new connections to Mumbai and Hyderabad.
Mahan Air celebrated 15 years of its operations at a grand ceremony at Le Meridien, New Delhi, which saw the travel trade from the capital in full attendance. Speaking on the sidelines of the event, Harvinder S Duggal, Managing Director, Minar Group, GSA for Mahan Air, said, “We have been the GSA of Mahan Air ever since it started flying to India. It’s a pleasure to see how we launched the airline with one flight a week to Delhi, and now it has grown to three flights a week. Now, we are connecting to Europe and we are seeing good growth in the coming 6-7 months. The services are well accepted by the Indian market, which is a good thing. The aircraft is widebodied and the airlines has convenient timings. Tehran airport is counted as one of the good airports around the world and we are trying to add more flights in more cities in the next one year in India. Our plan is to fly to Mumbai and Hyderabad in the coming year.”
Present at the occasion was Fariba Bayati, Regional Director, Fareast and India, Mahan Air. She claimed that India is one of the most popular destination amongst Iranians. “After starting Delhi we have had plenty of seasonal flights (mostly winter) to destinations like Goa and Kochi because these places are very popular as leisure destinations for Iranians. In the last 15 years, we have always been on a growth track and we are also looking forward to developing our presence in India. There are 2-3 more destinations, which are being studied by our team, and we are waiting for bilaterals to be established on that. For instance, we are looking at permissions for both Delhi and even Mumbai,” she added.
Mehdi Shiri, Country Manager-India, Mahan Air, claimed that while they are looking to expand in India, they are simultaneously strengthening their connections into Europe, offering Indians great transit options via Tehran. “We are increasing connections via Tehran to Europe, including Munich, Dusseldorf, Barcelona, Milan as well as Turkey, Moscow, Baku and some religious cities in Iraq. We have three flights a week from Delhi and the PLF is around 1000 seats in a week,” he shared.
Expecting a good growth in the future, Duggal said, “The current load factor on Mahan Air from India is more than 70 per cent. We have to double the passenger load in the next one year. Thus, we aim to reach 100,000 passengers from India in the next year. We are adopting various initiatives to get to this target. Since Mahan Air was not on any GDS, we launched a portal to make the sales available throughout India. We have sales offices in Delhi, Jalandhar, Mumbai and Kolkata. For B2C, our online platform is working and we keep updating it. We are also in touch with the passengers through social media. Thus, there is good awareness about the product.”