KOCHI: As part of its efforts to woo more passengers, Air India Express (AIE) will give concessional rates for excess baggage up to 10kg to incoming passengers from Middle East effective immediately. Airline sources said passengers could carry up to 20kg free while Rs 150 will be charged for every kg up to 10kg. Currently, the passengers have to pay Rs 500/kg for excess baggage. This is expected to benefit those travelling with heavy baggage from parts of Middle East to Kerala and other states. Sources said the airline had also decided to change the in-flight food and make it more ethnic from the ensuing winter schedule. The in-flight food for flights starting from Thiruvananthapuram, Cochin, Kozhikode and Mangalore will be decided in Kochi and for those flying out of north Indian destinations at Delhi and Amritsar. K Shyam Sundar, chief executive officer of Air India Charters Ltd (AICL) that operates the AIE, said the airline hoped to induct at least some new aircraft it was planning to take on lease in the next summer schedule. We have invited bids for leasing eight aircraft, and they will be inducted in 2015 and 2016. This will take the fleet strength to 25, he said. Once the new aircraft arrive, the airline will be able to operate more flights in the existing routes and introduce new destinations in the schedule. It plans to introduce more flights from north Indian cities as there is an increase in number of Indian workers from those regions moving to the Middle East, the CEO said. He claimed the AICLs performance in the first four months of this fiscal had been encouraging. During this period we have achieved passenger load factor of about 84%. Passenger revenues have increased by 21% compared to last year and the yields have gone up by 16%. We have increased the capacity offered on the AICL network by 2% despite a reduction in the number of aircraft on our fleet. This was possible through more intensive utilization of the available aircraft. The on-time performance of flights from stations in south India has gone up by 90% over the last four months, he said.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 05:24:48 +0000
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