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Tunia Cherian George

Sees good potential in secondary cities in North, South

Mumbai , March 28

Air Arabia, which recently completed its first year of operations in India, is looking at expanding operations to the South and North of the country.

While cities such as Kochi and Kozhikode represent important markets for the airline, it is also keen to fly to centres such as Amritsar and Jaipur.

"We see good business potential in secondary cities which have a sizeable number of travellers still under-served by global airlines," said Mr Rohit Ramachandran, Manager, India, Air Arabia.

The low-cost carrier from Sharjah currently operates to Mumbai and Nagpur with an average load factor of over 95 per cent on both routes. Operations to secondary airports, he said, had both advantages and disadvantages.

For example, in Nagpur, which is currently underserved, the airline did not face any slot issues. The airport had a long runway and apron. Further, the AAI staff, Mr Ramachandran found, were enthusiastic in providing services. On the flip side, the terminal facilities were still inadequate. However, this has not proved a major hindrance, he said. In fact, the airline set something of a record, when it turned around one of its flights in 19 minutes last month.

"Though our schedule prescribes a turnaround time of 45 minutes, we managed to complete all the operations, including passenger embarkation, disembarkation, baggage removal and loading, as well as cleaning and re-fuelling, in just 19 minutes."

The airline operates five weekly flights to Nagpur and plans to launch daily services shortly.

Interline agreement with Kingfisher Airlines: The tie-up is working well for both players. Following the alliance, Air Arabia has flown about 2,500 passengers directly from the Gulf to stations such as Bangalore, Goa, and Mangalore, which are served by the Indian airline.

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