|
|
OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT May 8,
2005: Jet Airways India Ltd, the largest
privately owned airline in India, is planning to
launch a daily non-stop service from London's
Heathrow Airport to Mumbai, starting from May 23,
2005.
The Jet Airways flights will operate from Heathrow
Terminal no three, departing at 21:25 hours and
arriving at 10.50 hours the following morning in
Mumbai. The carrier intends to use A340-300
aircraft on this route, with 38 business class
seats (flat beds) and 231 economy (32 inch pitch)
seats.
According to Jet Airways general manager for
Britain and Ireland Dan Brewin, "This is an
extremely exciting time for the airline. Launching
our first international service from India to
Britain at the end of May marks a huge step in our
global expansion plans. The UK market in
particular is a key one for us and we intend to
increase capacity to Heathrow later this year."
The return tickets are priced at 399 pounds, he
said.
Jet Airways has selected Brussels as its European
stopover airport on the Mumbai-New York (Newark)
route. In the recent past, Jet Airways also
requested slots at Amsterdam airport and at Paris
CDG.
Jet Airways will fly an Airbus A340-300,
dry-leased from South African Airways, to operate
on the Mumbai-Newark route. The operations will
start from June 23, 2005, with six flights per
week, even as the airline has plans to increase
the frequency to one flight per day by later this
year.
Meanwhile, Jet Airways along with Indian Airlines
(IA) and Air Sahara have launched a domestic
Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP) pilot programme
with 51 major travel agents across India,
effective from May one.
These travel agents would issue BSP documents for
domestic travel, while a Domestic Working Group
(DWG) has been formed under the chairmanship of IA
to oversee the procedure. BSP is an international
norm for sale and ticketing of airfares.
The procedural issues pertaining to domestic BSP
have been finalised by the DWG in consultation
with BSP India, a division of IATA, a Jet Airways
spokesman said.
BSP India has also briefed and guided the
participating travel agents, he said, adding, Jet
Airways is planning to extend the domestic BSP
programme with other travel agents across the
network in a phased manner.
Jet Airways, which started operations in 1993, has
established itself as the leading domestic
full-service carrier in India with a 46 per cent
market share. The airline operates one of the
youngest fleets in the world with an average age
of 4.8 years. The carrier ferried over eight
million passengers in 2004.
OUR AVIATION CORRESPONDENT |
