The number of flights to India from Gulf countries has increased dramatically. In July Oman Air started flights to Bangalore, its 10th destination in India, making a total of five flights per week to the city.
Emirates Airline added 18 flights per week to three of its current Indian destinations, including Bangalore. This will provide corporate travellers smooth connections to international business hubs such as New York, London, Frankfurt, and Paris via Dubai. At the same time it will offer more flight options to North India’s holiday seekers and students travelling to North America, UK, Switzerland and Mauritius.
The airline will step up its frequencies to New Delhi and Hyderabad, progressing its Indian footprint to 132 flights per week – the highest ever frequency for an international carrier in the Indian skies. The new frequencies started to be introduced since July and will continue to build up until October 2008.
The additional flights have been timed to provide the city’s business and leisure travellers with quick connections to onward points in Europe and North America.
Gulf Air, the sole national carrier of the Kingdom of Bahrain, started its first services to Hyderabad in July, making it the eighth Indian destination for the airline. Gulf Air operates over 275 flights per month offering as much as 50,000 seats to Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram.
In the same month, Jet Airways, which began operating flights between Bahrain and India earlier this year, added Delhi and Thiruvananthapuram to its list of destinations. The new destinations are being offered under a codeshare deal with Abu Dhabi based Etihad Airways. The airline already operates services to Mumbai and Kochi.
Etihad flies three times every day between Bahrain and Abu Dhabi, once a day from Abu Dhabi to Delhi, twice every week between Abu Dhabi and Thiruvananthapuram and daily between Abu Dhabi and Kochi.
Jet Airways was recently recognised for its excellence and quality of service and in-flight experience in the ‘Airline of the Year Category’ at the second annual awards ceremony, held at the British Museum in London on June 17.
Earlier this year, Jet Airways extended its international operations to the Gulf with daily flights from Kuwait, Muscat, Doha, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi. The airline plans to further add more cities to its Gulf routes. Additionally, the airline has introduced joint interline international fare options with their airline partners in the Gulf.
The code share agreement with Etihad Airways added another milestone to Jet Airways expansion and will also provide customers with greater benefits and excellent connections between Mumbai/Delhi and Abu Dhabi sectors.