Linking non-traditional Indian gateways to the Gulf, especially destinations in the UAE, is a prime objective of Indian Airlines (IA) which connected Sharjah with the southern Indian city of Trivandrum on Saturday, according to an official.
At a press conference in Sharjah a few hours before the first flight landed from the Kerala state capital, S Krishna murthy, the airline's Mumbai based general manager (commercial-western region), said more flights are in the offing between India and the UAE.
Reserving specific details, he said the airline was looking at the possibility of linking new routes and increasing frequencies of those offering good traffic.
With the introduction of the direct flights between Sharjah and Trivandrum, all three airports in Kerala are now connected to the UAE. Cochin and Calicut were already linked to the UAE sector.
The Sharjah-Trivandrum flight IC 989, serviced by an Airbus A320, arrived at around 6.30pm returned as IC 990 an hour later. They operate on Saturdays and Tuesdays. With this, IA now operates 32 direct flights to 13 destinations in India.
While the airline was willing to start new routes soon with the arrival of four leased Airbus A300 B4 Aircraft, Krishnamurthy said the Haj charters would keep the spare capacity occupied till the end of March.
Set to boost its fleet strength to 54 with two more A300s to join soon, the airline will start new services to the UAE from April, he added.
"The Trivandrum service is expected to do well since we already have a fully booked flight leaving this evening," Krishnamurthy said. The introductory fare of Dhs 800 for one way and Dhs 1500 for a round-trip, excluding taxes and other charges of Dhs 90 and Dhs 210 respectively, is open for outbound travel till Jan.31.
The IA also offers rupee parity fares of Rs9,500 and Rs 17,450 for one-way and round-trip travel originating in India. The