Air India, the national airline of India, has planned to operate daily flights between Dammam and Riyadh to Cochin and Calicut in Kerala w.e.f 7 Sep' 08. On the declaration of daily flight to Kerala cities, Deepak Anand, regional manager of the airlines, revealed that the timing to introduce these flights has been chosen to coincide with the festivals of Eid Al-fitr and Onam. The daily Airbus A320 flights will run with an arrangement of 20 Executive and 125 Economy class seats.
With the additional 14 flights, Air India will operate 47 flights in a week which is a steady rise of 42.4% from the present 33 flights. Anand further told that the airline is also focusing on expansion in the Western Province. November onwards, the national carrier is also planning to operate new flights between Riyadh and Dammam to Hyderabad, Chennai and Delhi, respectively. Moreover, 56 other flights will run for Haj pilgrims from India.
As regards the competition between Air India and Jet Airways, with the Jet Airways too starting its flights to Saudi Arabia, the regional manager didn’t find any problem. He confirmed that Air India will not get affected since it is a direct operator between Saudi Arabia and India, though other GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) carriers using indirect flights through their airline hubs in the Gulf may get affected. Earlier, it was reported that Jet Airways will start daily flights between Mumbai, Delhi, Riyadh and Jeddah from October.
According to the sources, the governments of India and Saudi Arabia have permitted more than one airline from each side to operate between the two countries, following the termination of a 3-year moratorium imposed by the Indian government in 2004 that allowed only Air India and its subsidiaries to take off to Saudi Arabia. After the U.A.E (United Arab Emirates), Saudi Arabia is the second country to which Jet Airways has been allowed to fly in recent weeks.
