Singapore Airlines, SilkAir ramp up Kolkota services

Kolkata: Singapore International Airlines, along with its regional subsidiary, SilkAir, will ramp up services between Kolkota and Singapore to a daily one and operate a total of seven round-trip services every week. The increase in the frequency of services comes even as India emerges as one of its top five markets.

Earlier, on 1 October last year, the airline had introduced a four-times-a-week, A330 flight between Kolkata and Singapore. This will now be a thrice-weekly service, operating on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, while SilkAir flights have been introduced on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Sundays.

SilkAir, which offers lower fares than SIA, also operates services to other Indian cities such as Hyderabad, Kochi, Chennai and Bangalore. The fare for SilkAir flights, which are full-service flights, is likely to be 15-20 per cent lower than that of Singapore Airlines.

Singapore Airlines has already announced a decision to introduce a low-cost airline sometime next year to service long-haul and medium-haul routes like India.

GM Toh, GM-India, Singapore Airlines, who led a delegation of company officials to the new West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee, later said, ''With the launch of SilkAir's services to Kolkata, we'll together operate daily flights, providing our customers more choices and convenience. Our decision was fuelled by the fact that Kolkata is the main business, commercial and financial hub of eastern India.''