Competition to tap no-frills market rises

The competition in the Indian budget flight segment is set to intensify with Air India planning to launch its low-cost domestic arm from September this year.

The Indian national carrier said last week that the new no-frills operation would be launched by Air India Express, the low-cost arm of Air India, which already flies to various destinations in the Middle East.

At the same time, in the full-service segment of the market, two major Indian carriers – business baron Vijay Mallya-owned Kingfisher Airlines and Naresh Goyal's Jet Airways, are looking at the Middle East for full-service offerings, according to a recent report by the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, or Capa.

It stated that while Kingfisher Airlines is launching a direct flight from Kolkata to Bangkok on August 14, Jet Airways is due to begin its second daily service from Mumbai to Bangkok two days later.

Jet also starts a daily Kochi-Sharjah flight on September 1, after the carrier last week launched a daily flight to Riyadh from Mumbai. These services are being offered to improve yields and to maximise aircraft deployment, Capa said in its industry report.

"Besides catering to entrepreneurs, traders and leisure traffic, the flights will cater to Mice traffic, with excellent connectivity from Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati, Patna and Ranchi," Siva Ramachandran, Vice-President (Global Sales) Kingfisher Airlines, was quoted by Capa as saying.

To occupy a significant share of the pie, Kingfisher, which launched its first Middle East service – between Bengaluru and Dubai in June 2009, plans to connect to the UAE from a number of cities in India during the course of the years, Ramachandran had recently told Emirates Business. The airline's Bengaluru-Dubai service would be followed by a direct flight between Bengaluru and Abu Dhabi shortly, he said.

He added that the airline is currently evaluating options for connecting Dubai with at least three more Indian cities – Delhi, Thiruvananthapuram and Hyderabad, despite economic crisis. "All these services to Dubai will start this year itself. Meanwhile, we also may look to connect Thiruvananthapuram with Abu Dhabi following that," Ramachandran told this newspaper.

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