Jet Airways starts operations on the Gulf route
05 Jan 2008
New Delhi: With Jet Airways Flight 9W572 taking off from the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi this morning, Jet Airways became India's first private airline to start services to the Gulf. The flight marks the launch of the carrier's direct daily services to Kuwait and Bahrain.
So far only state-owned carriers, Air India and Indian Airlines, served this lucrative sector. Lately, they had come under pressure from Gulf carriers, like Emirates, Kuwait Airways, Gulf Air and Qatar Airlines. Jet now joins the fray, providing passengers to the region with increasing number of choices.
The director general of the DGCA, Kanu Gohain, flagged off Jet Airway's flight, that left for its destination with 69 passengers onboard.
"Keeping in mind the unmet demand of more flight in the Gulf sector, we have introduced our world class services for the passengers going to these countries," said PK Sinha, vice president, international relations and industry affairs.
As for future plans, Sinha said Jet will launch two new flights to Muscat and Doha in Qatar, from Calicut, on January 23.
"Gulf is now growing as a tourist destination. As more and more Indian are preferring to go to these countries for holidays, there is huge demand for better connectivity which is still unmet," he said.
The airline also launched three other daily direct flights on Saturday - Kochi-Kuwait, Kochi-Baharain and Mumbai-Kuwait.