Emirates Airlines adding more flights from Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram

Emirates Airlines, the national flag-carrier airline of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is expanding its services in India, focusing on adding flights to and from the southern state of Kerala.

The airline said it will raise its capacity from Kerala by over 2,000 seats a week in the next 2 months.

Emirates Airlines is set jack up its weekly flights from Thiruvananthapuram, the capital of Kerala, from 8 flights to 12 flights. Services from Kozhikode will go up from 7 weekly flights to 11 flights a week.

Of these services, 6 flights – 3 each from Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode – are to begin operations from October 26, 2009, and the remaining services will start on December 1, 2009.

Once the new flights take wings, the weekly seat capacity from Thiruvananthapuram will increase from 2,200 at present to 3,300 and the cargo capacity for the whole of Kerala state will go up from 340 tonnes to 440 tonnes.

At present, Emirates Airlines operates 14 weekly flights from Kochi, the commercial hub of Kerala. This number is set to increase to as many as 37 flights by December 2009 – which amounts to a growth of 32%.

According to Asha Subramanian, Emirates Airlines’ sales manager for south Kerala, the carrier has scheduled the flights in such a way that those passengers travelling to onward destinations need not have to wait at Dubai Airport for more than 2 hours.

Emirates has also arranged a common pass for the member-countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) for the benefit of passengers visiting those nations on work.

Emirates has connections to 90 destinations worldwide. At present, the airline’s transit time for destinations in Europe, the United States and in other major countries is less than 2 hours.

The official said that the carrier is aiming at expansion with a view to taking “early advantage” of the economic revival, adding that the global economic depression had not affected adversely much its operations from India – with the load factor in the region staying at about 75%.

Passenger traffic from other destinations in India such as Delhi and Mumbai also has registered an increase, according to Asha Subramanian.

There has been a growth of 25%-30% in booking from Thiruvananthapuram since Emirates Airlines started flights from there in 2006.

Emirates also announced special fares in the economy-class that will be valid till November 30, 2009. Accordingly, the return fares to London will begin at Rs 23,555; to New York at Rs 40,385; and to Dubai at Rs 16,820 (Dh 1,300).