Comments
The Union Civil Aviation Minister, Mr Vayalar Ravi, on Sunday inaugurated the corporate headquarters of Air India Express (AIE), the low-cost subsidiary of Air India, which was shifted from Mumbai to Kochi.
Keeping in mind that Kerala is the biggest market, the airline has shifted its corporate headquarters to Kochi. The engineering hangar at Thiruvananthapuram, which is expected to be operational by April this year, will be the first-ever state-of-the-art engineering hangar to be set up in the State, he said.
AIE, which operates 189 flights on its network today, will commence operations to Dammam by next month. Similarly, flights from Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram to Dammam, are also on the anvil by May this year, he said.
Parking, handling fees
The Minister also asked the management of the Cochin International Airport ltd (CIAL) to reduce the parking and handling fees.
He also urged the State Government to reduce the sales tax on aviation fuel, which was the highest in the country.
The shifting of AIE headquarters should be seen as an opportunity help the people of the State he said, adding that the decision to shift the AIE headquarters was a major step to help and improve the performance of Air India. The entire operation of AIE would be guided and operated from here.
Of the 25 lakh travellers in AIE, 14.5 lakh are from Kerala. AIE operates mainly to various Gulf destinations, besides Singapore and Dhaka.
Mr Arvind Jadhav, Chairman, Air India Charters Ltd, said AI and AIE would be separate entities and Air India Express would be given all freedom to choose its network. AIE, at present, has 21 aircraft and four would be added soon.
Of the 21 aircraft, 3 each are based in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi, and 4 at Kozhikode. Besides, two would be in Managalore, one each in Mumbai, Thiruchirapalli, Dubai, and 3 in Chennai. Remaining 3 aircraft would be based in Mumbai for maintenance and when AIE gets more aircraft, most of them would be sent to Kochi, Mr S. Chandrakumar, Chief Operating Officer, AIE, said.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.