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29 March 2024

Jet to add four new Dubai-India routes

The carrier will launch flights from Dubai to four more Indian cities. (AFP)

Published
By Shweta Jain

Jet Airways, India's largest private carrier, plans to launch four new Indian routes from Dubai in the next three months, a senior executive said.

The airline launched operations to the UAE last year with daily direct flights to Abu Dhabi in April, followed by Dubai in August.

"From Dubai, we are planning to launch flights to four more Indian destinations – Hyderabad, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Mangalore. Talks are in process and we should be able to launch these routes in the next two to three months," Abraham Joseph, Senior General Manager for Jet Airways Middle East and North Africa, told Emirates Business.

The Indian carrier currently operates daily non-stop flights to Delhi and Mumbai from Abu Dhabi and Dubai. Last month it included Chennai to its route network from Dubai and added one more frequency to Mumbai again from Dubai. Plans are also afoot to launch daily services from Mumbai each to Jeddah and Riyadh starting June 14 this year, Joseph said.

In order to battle the declining demand in air travel and boost traffic on the UAE-India route, the carrier has slashed its airfares by about 20 per cent this year.

The first cut for Jet Airways' airfares was in March this year when the carrier slashed fares by about 12 per cent on flights from the UAE to India. This was followed by a 10-per cent cut in fares last week on the same sector.

Asked if the airline was planning any further cuts in airfares this year, Joseph said: "Airfares are already quite low. I do not think we would be able to reduce it any further than what we already have. As with all other airlines, we also reduced fares because of the market pressures. But it is not good for airlines to keep reducing fares in the long run."

Declining market conditions also forced the carrier, which started international operations four years ago, to pull out of two of its international markets – San Francisco and Beijing – early this year. "We had to pull out of a couple of not-so-good routes in early January. We basically did right-sizing in order to cope with the worsening economic conditions," Joseph said.

Asked if the airline planned to pull out of any of its Middle East markets, he said: "On the contrary we are expanding our reach and operations in this region."

Despite the air travel business suffering from a serious slowdown globally as well as in the region, Jet Airways claims it has witnessed a good 20-25 per cent increase in its future bookings for this summer in Abu Dhabi.

"Our Dubai services have yet to complete a year, but in Abu Dhabi our future bookings for the three summer months – June, July and August – are up about 20-25 per cent this year compared to last summer," Joseph said.

He added the airline's average load factors for the Middle East rested 75 per cent for the year 2008-09. "In the UAE, however, we expect the load factors to be slightly higher – up to 80 per cent, in 2009-10," he said.


JETLITE'S UAE LAUNCH

JetLite, the budget arm of Jet Airways, may soon start flying to the UAE, according to Abraham Joseph.

"We already have the rights from India as well as the UAE. We only have to make a commercial decision. We are still evaluating our options and the decision to start JetLite flights to the UAE is in the discussion stages as of now. If we decide to launch services this year, it would either be to Dubai or Abu Dhabi," he said.

 

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