The Hindu Business Line : Thai Airways to add more flights from India

THAI Airways plans to increase the frequency of flights from Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai to seven a week while it would be increased to five from Bangalore.

The airline also plans to fly to Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Amritsar, Jaipur and Kochi, the Thai Airways General Manager for India, Mr Pricha Nawongs, told newspersons on Wednesday.

He said since launching its flight from India, the seat capacity was as high as 100 on certain flights. The seat capacity was around 96 per cent from Delhi and Mumbai and 86 per cent from Kolkata and Chennai. Since its soft launch on March 29, the seat capacity from Bangalore was around 86 per cent.

He said though the number of flights to Delhi cannot be increased from the existing seven flights a week, four more flights will be added from Kolkata and Mumbai increasing it to seven per week. Chennai will have three more flights thereby increasing it to seven while Bangalore will get one more flight thereby increasing the frequency to five per week.

He said Thai Airways currently operates a 247-seater A300-600 flight to Bangalore on every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. From October, A330 with a capacity of 305 seats will replace the existing aircraft.

Mr Nowangs said the number of tourist arrivals to Thailand from India has seen a growth rate of 10 per cent and 50 per cent for 2002 and 2003 and currently stands at 2,80 lakh. "Favourable policies have been established and is aimed to expand the investment between the two countries up to $2 billion within five years," he said. Thai Airways has 83 aircraft in its fleet.

Passengers will receive double mileage points per sector for travelling on Thai Airways from Bangalore.