Air India Express

Air India's Boeing 747-400 - erstwhile Maharaja!
Photo by Adrian Pingstone, May 2004 [source].

It’s the time of low-cost airlines. After clogging the domestic routes in the country, the tide is gradually turning in international sector too. And no one is complaining.

Next month Air India Express (or AIE), the low-cost offering from Air India, will commence short flights from Kolkata to international destinations. High on the list are Singapore, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur.

AIE already operates such flights from Mumbai and Trivandrum that fly to the Middle East to places like Dubai (Emirates), Doha (Qatar), Manama (Bahrain), and Abu Dhabi among others. There are flights from Mangalore and Chennai as well.

AIE flights are usually Boeing 737-800 that can fly to destinations that last thereabouts of 4 hours.

Incidentally, Singapore’s Tiger Airways is another low-cost airline that is slated to start operating from Kolkata by the year-end.

AIE will have commensurate tie-ups with Alliance Air that has strong presence in the northeastern sector from Kolkata. This means passengers from the North East can seamlessly avail journey to the Southeast Asian cities through Kolkata.

In fact there is a strong move to merge Indian Airlines and Alliance Air with Air India. Should that happen it’d be more hassle free to fly to these destinations.

In the meantime, Air India is really in high spirits having just completed (Aug 2) its maiden non-stop 16-hour flight, christened ‘Andhra Pradesh’, from Mumbai to JFK International Airport in New York.

[Collated from ABP, Aug 5]