Air India mulls

Air India has a market share of 17 per cent in the North East, which seemingly is a profitable sector for the airline. Ashwani Lohani, Chairman & Managing Director, Air India informed that while some sectors are not profitable in the North East, overall the operations remain gainful as they get a viability gap funding from North Eastern Council (NEC). He also informed that they are considering to operate a direct flight between Guwahati and Bangkok or between Guwahati and Kunming thrice a week. He informed that they are planning to start a new flight between New Delhi and Guwahati from June 28, taking the number of flights on this route to two. Also the Guwahati-Kolkata flight is most definitely on the cards. The airline is also start ing new flights under UDAN to Pathankot and Ludhiana. They will be starting new flights from Lucknow from June 25 to Jaipur, Dehradun and Bhopal routes. “In South India, we will be putting an airplane in Bengaluru this month, which would be flying to Coimbatore, Chennai and Madurai,” he added.