Istanbul: India’s budget carrier IndiGo has launched its flight on the Delhi-Istanbul sector and announced to use its expanding fleet of A320neo and A321neo aircraft to connect more Indian cities to countries such as China, Vietnam, England, Myanmar and Saudi Arabia.
William Boulter, Chief Commercial Officer of IndiGo said Wednesday here, “We are looking very seriously into other points in South East Asia, notably the obvious ones of Vietnam and Myanmar. We also want to operate shortly to Saudi Arabia on the west side”.
“We are seriously interested in getting in China as soon as we can. We are still selecting precise destinations,” he said.
“India operates only five flights from here to China per week, whereas China operates 42 flights to India per week. It’s basically time that we start readdressing that balance. I am convinced that there is a huge amount of traffic in India-China axis. We have not yet tapped that,” Boulter said.
The airline plans to add 125 A321neo aircraft in its fleet over number of years. In 2019, it will receive 20-25 of these aircraft from Airbus, he said.
India’s largest airline IndiGo has around 40 per cent domestic passenger market share.
While Delhi-Istanbul flight is being operated in A321neo aircraft having 222 seats, Boulter clarified that the flights to China would be based on A320neos.
The Delhi-Istanbul flight plans to connect 20 forward destinations using the codeshare pact that was signed between India’s largest airline and Turkish Airlines December 21 last year. Codeshare pact allows passengers to travel on a single ticket on flights operated by the partner carrier.
Boulter said that Delhi-Istanbul is a ‘strategic route’ and the permission for six forward destinations have already been received by the respective countries’ governments.
PTI