‘Let us fly from tertiary airports too’

Sudhir Sreedharan, Senior Vice President, Commercial (GCC, Subcontinent, Africa), flydubai, is looking at the bigger picture – not load factors and profitable routes, but tourism development and easier and cheaper movement across borders to fuel economic

Are you planning to add flights to the DubaiMumbai route?

The current capacity of five flights a week is hardly enough for a metropolis like Mumbai that has a population of 20 million. Plus, Dubai today is more of an extension of India. So, yes we would love to increase capacity. Mumbai is a no-brainer.

What are your plans for India?

We will be adding four new frequencies by March 2015 either from the current seven points that we fly to or some new airports we will be given access to. We currently have permission to land only in 11 Indian airports. So we definitely want to expand in India but are not getting permissions. In reply, we are saying don’t give us Delhi or Mumbai – give other airports. Let a foreign carrier invest in developing newer markets if the Indian carriers don’t want to. We urge the Indian government to have an all-inclusive policy. We have 54 markets other than Dubai the Northeast part of the country is very hospitality driven. But despite the hospitality boom in Dubai, I don’t see people from the North East being able to participating in that growth because the rates for someone from Shillong to fly to Dubai are exorbitant. If we are able to offer a `

14,000 fare from Shillong to Dubai, that’s news!

If Shillong for instance is given to us as a point of entry, we will ensure that we are able