AI increases global footprint
Melwin D’Silva, Regional Manager-Gulf, ME and Africa, Air India, reveals the airline’s plan to increase its global footprint.
The recently released Sojern Report for Q2 explains how India has remained on top as a must-visit destination. India’s national carrier has been instrumental in getting higher passenger load factor from around the world with Dubai playing a key role.
“Our plan is to increase footprints across the world by adding new sectors and fleet to strengthen and increase networks both domestic and international markets to provide the customers an end to end product,” he says.
Among the recently announced expansion plan is induction of 100 new aircraft on lease during the next few years for Air India whilst Air India da Expressp ess will induct six new aircraft in the Gulf and in some other key regional touch points.
In terms of adding new destinations, Air India Express has Tehran in Iran to be added this winter. Apart from this, Air India legacy carrier will commence a direct flight on August 15 from Ahmedabad to London which connects to New Jersey. The airline will strengthen its capacity in its hubs in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata to accommodate the steady growth of visitors from around the world.
The introduction of the “Through Fares” (6th Freedom fares) where you can pay for two holidays with one fare is the latest addition to the AI product portfolio from UAE. The fares have a free stopovere facilityac with hotel layovers whereve wherever connections are longer th than six hours at transit point in India. These fares are available for sectors like Dubai-Delhi- Melbourne or Sydney, DubaiDelhi-San Francisco and many other destinations such as Narita, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Seoul, London, Birmingham, Moscow, Vienna, Paris, Singapore to name a few. It is also offering liberal baggage allowance on these fares with most sectors getting 2 piece concept baggage allowance.
Air India Express will induct six new aircraft in the Gulf and in some other key regional touch points