Air Arabia has launched two new services to the southern cities of Chennai and Thiruvananthapuram, even as the low-cost carrier added Kathmandu on its destination portfolio.

The carrier will begin an extra daily flight between Sharjah and Mumbai for the winter season, which is the beginning of the holiday season in India. The additional flight will be ferry until the end of January 2007. At present, Air Arabia has 14 flights a week to Mumbai.

"The launch of services to these new destinations is part of our commitment to passengers as we strive to deliver value to our customers by ensuring that our network has broad coverage at the lowest possible fares," Air Arabia Chief Executive Officer Adel Ali said.

The flight to Chennai leaves Sharjah at 0800 hours and arrives in Chennai at 1320 hours, while the return flights will take off from the city at 1405 hours, landing at Sharjah at 1645 hours local time.

Regular flights, however, will leave Sharjah at 2250 and arrive in Chennai 0430. The return flight leaves Chennai at 0515 and arrives at Sharjah International Airport at 0740.

Flights to Thiruvananthapuram will depart from Sharjah at 0645 hours, arriving in the capital city of Kerala at 1220 hours. The return flights will depart from Thiruvananthapuram at 1305 hours, reaching Sharjah at 1555 hours local time. The service to Thiruvananthapuram is the sixth destination for the low-cost carrier.

The carrier already has services to Mumbai, Jaipur, Kochi and Nagpur in India, while it is also mulling of adding additional services to the Indian sub-continent.

The airline, the first low-fares airline of Middle East and North Africa, has also begun services to the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal on its route.

The new Mumbai flight is to cater to the increase in vacation travellers to the country. This is the carrier's second flight to the economic capital of the country.

The two daily flights take off at 1:30 am and 6:30 am from the Sharjah International Airport and land in the Mumbai International Airport at 5:45 am and 8:05 am, respectively.

"The demand for services to these cities has been overwhelming and we are confident that we will be able to cater to the huge mass of travellers on these sectors. We have also decided to spruce up our fleet by adding one more aircraft by end-October and another one by end of November," Adel Ali said.

The carrier is also acquiring another A320 that would be used for its expansion plans for the region and sub-continent.

At present, Air Arabia operates services to Aleppo and Damascus in Syria, Alexandria, Assiut and Luxor in Egypt, Amman in Jordan, Astana and Almaty in Kazakhstan and Bahrain. The carrier also operates to Beirut in Lebanon; Colombo in Sri Lanka; Dammam, Jeddah and Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, Doha in Qatar, Istanbul in Turkey, Kabul in Afghanistan; Khartoum in Sudan; Kuwait; Muscat in Oman; Sanaa in Yemen; Sharjah in United Arab Emirates and Tehran in Iran.