Sharjah based low-cost airline, Air Arabia has witnessed a healthy load factor of 97 per cent from the India sector in 2015. “Today, Air Arabia is a well recognised and well established brand in India, people get value for money and on time performance. The load factor was well over 97 per cent from India in 2015. Also, our Indian team worked very closely with the travel trade to promote the airlines along with a few exciting destinations like Georgia, Armenia, etc in India where we have our network. Sharjah is also getting more and more popular amongst the Indians. So we enjoy a good response from this market,” Shalini Rajan, Head of Sales, Air Arabia said.
Currently, Air Arabia operates 112 weekly flights to 13 cities in India. “As of now, we don’t have any plans to expand the geographical network in India, but in future we will be happy to tap more Tier II and III Cities,” she added.
Speaking about the overall aviation industry in 2016, Rajan added, “2016, overall for the aviation industry in this region is going to be very challenging. There are a lot of political issues happening in this region, which will create a lot of ups and downs in the aviation market. But, India still remains a very strong network for us. We have around two million Indians living in UAE, which itself proves the point. UAE is also now looked upon as a destination wedding place; we see a lot of Indian weddings happening here. To further tap this segment, we are working very closely with a lot of destination wedding planners, as we can bring a lot of tailor made things for the wedding segment.”
22/02/16 Skhsay Kumar/Travel Trands Today
