India’s Jet Airways will soon look at operating direct services to almost all of India’s large cities, a top official said recently.
Jet Airways Gulf, Middle East and North Africa general manager Abraham Joseph said the immediate priority was to launch world-class services from Bahrain when it begins operations on 5 January.
“We are starting off with a flight a day to Mumbai and Kochi, from Bahrain, both of which will be non-stop operations,” said Joseph.
“The 14 flights every week will operate state-of-the-art Boeing 737-800 aircraft, in the configuration of 124 economy and 16 business class seats.”
Joseph said flights to New Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore from Bahrain would follow soon, depending on clearances from India’s civil aviation authorities.
Jet Airways, India’s largest private airline, had been given the go-ahead to fly to Bahrain in September 2007.
India’s civil aviation ministry has allocated 2,100 seats every week to Jet’s Bahrain operations. Of these, 1,050 seats have been allocated for Kochi while the rest have been allocated to Mumbai.
The airline will operate full-service flights initially, operated by Jet Airways as well as its low cost arm, Jet Lite, to offer an all economy budget service later.