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Indian Airlines' gulf sector passengers increase
BY OUR CORRESPONDENT
8 August, 2005: State-run Indian Airlines’ passenger carriage in the Gulf-India sector rose from 110,000 to 134, 000 in the April June period of the
fiscal year 2005-2006, compared to the same period the previous year.
The seat factor has recorded a growth of seven per cent from 83 per cent in the first quarter of 2004-2005 to 90 per cent in the first quarter of 2005-2006.
Indian Airlines recorded a 22 per cent growth in overall passenger growth in April- June this year, compared to the corresponding period the previous year.
This is despite the fact that there competition increased from low cost carriers and indirect operators like Air India Express.
Pankaj Srivastava, regional director of Indian Airlines, was quoted by the Khaleej Times daily as saying that better capacity utilization led to the growth which was also fuelled by operations to 15 direct destinations.
The United Arab Emirates-India sector witnessed a 30 per cent passenger growth in the first quarter. Seat factor also rose from the previous years 85 to 90 per cent.
This is mainly attributed to the introduction of Sharjah-Mumbai daily flights. The UAE sector accounts for more than 60 % of Indian Airlines gulf carriage.
The Indian Airlines has reportedly signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with an European firm for e-Ticketing on its entire network. This will cover 57 destinations in India and twenty abroad. The introduction of e-ticket, which is a ticket data bank stored in an electronic data base, could result in huge cost as ticket distribution costs are expected to dip.
The airline also hope to put the labour intensive process of handling tickets to an end with this. Indian Airlines posted a three per cent revenue increase last year from Rs 6.78 billion to Rs6.91 billion.
Indian Airlines and Air India was set up in 1953 following a legislation to nationalize airline industry. As part of this Air India took over international routes and Indian Airlines took over domestic and regional routes.
Domestic airlines Deccan Airways, Airways - India, Bharat Airways, Himalayan Aviation, Kalinga Air Lines, Indian National Airways, Air India, Air Services of India, were merged to form the Indian Airlines Corporation, which inherited a large fleet of 74 DC-3 Dakotas, 12 Vikings, 3 DC-4s and various smaller types from the 8 airlines that made it up. Viscounts were introduced in 1957 with Fokker F-27 Friendships from 1961.
The jet age began for Indian Airlines with the introduction of the pure-jet Caravelle airliner in 1964. Airbus A300 jets were introduced in 1970s. Boeing 737-200s were also used. Airbus A320s were added to the fleet in 1990s.
BY OUR CORRESPONDENT
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