Air Arabia to expand operations in India

Air Arabia, an international airline from Sharjah, is seeking to operate flights to over 20 airports in India and has been lobbying for additional rights to expand its base.

The airline has fully utilised its seat allocations granted two years ago, and is at present flying to 13 airports in India with double daily flights to Delhi, Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram.

“We have been seeking additional rights about twice a month from the Indian aviation authorities. There are so many other airports in India that we would like to fly to, and, hopefully, we would be allowed to,” said Adel Ali, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Air Arabia.

He said as the Indian government had not allowed additional seats, the airline had not yet finalised its Indian expansion plans.

As the Airport Authority of India was in the process of modernising and upgrading 35 airports, Air Arabia said it would operate to as many airports as possible after receiving additional rights.

“For the last two years, we have not grown in this market despite running at about 98 per cent seat factor simply because we were not being granted any more rights into India,” Mr. Ali said.

He said that the operational costs in India was 40 per cent higher as compared to other markets, which posed additional roadblocks in the survival of any airline, let alone making profits in the current competitive scenario.

“The cost of operation is very expensive here (India). The cost of labour and the cost of infrastructure (airport) are not expensive and some of the infrastructure is outdated. They don’t deserve the fees they are charging,” the Air Arabia CEO said.

He said India must rapidly improve airport infrastructure. “We operate to 13 airports in India while we are flying to 14 airports in Central Asia which is much bigger in size. So you can imagine where the market lies,” Mr. Ali said.

Air Arabia at present has a fleet of 31 aircraft and will be inducting 36 more by early 2016. The airline that started operation to India in 2005 is now operating 100 flights a week to India.

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-business/air-arabia-to-expand-operations-in-india/article4072358.ece