Air India Express direct Chennai-Abu Dhabi flights soon

The National Aviation Company of India Limited (NACIL) has announced that it will start biweekly Air India Express flights from Chennai to Abu Dhabi, via Tiruchirapalli, from April 30, 2009.Air India has said that Abu Dhabi is the fifth destination that is connected to Chennai via Air India Express.

“With the introduction of this new service from Chennai via Tiruchirappalli to Abu Dhabi, Air India Express would increase the present 21 flights per week to 23 with effect from April 30,” the airline said.

Air India would operate this new service on a biweekly basis, operating on Thursdays and Saturdays, with a capacity of 185 economy class seats. The B737-800

aircraft that will be used for this route will have an all-economy configuration.

The airline is offering promotional one-way fares starting from Dh149 to Tiruchirapally and Dh99 to Chennai, excluding taxes.

The Air India Express Chennai-Abu Dhabi flight will take off from Chennai at 12.50 pm and reach Abu Dhabi at 5 pm connecting Tiruchirapalli.

The return flight would leave Abu Dhabi at 6.20 pm and land in Chennai at 1.40 am again connecting Tiruchirapalli.

Air India Express already runs flights to Abu Dhabi from Kochi, Calicut, Trivandrum and Mangalore.

With the launch of the Chennai-Abu Dhabi flight, NACIL’s Abu Dhabi services will go up to 30 frequencies per week.

NACIL, a Government of India company, was set up in 2007 to ease the merger of the two main state-owned airlines, Air India, with its subsidiary Air India Express,  and Indian Express, with its subsidiary Alliance Air.

As of now, NACIL flies to 94 destinations in 24 countries. The 94 destinations include 61 domestic and 33 international destinations.