Keen to provide services to north east region of India 
Kahini Chakraborty – Mumbai
flydubai is looking at operating 29 weekly flights to India by March 2015. This will be done either by introducing four flights on new routes or by increasing frequencies on the same routes. The airline recently launched its five weekly flights between Mumbai and Dubai. Speaking to Express TravelWorld on the company’s plans for the India market, Ghaith Al Gaith, chief executive officer, flydubai said, “We will fully deploy our flying entitlements as per the bilateral agreement by March 2015. The airline presently offers 25 weekly flights to India, and we are looking at introducing four new flights to operate a total of 29 weekly flights to India by March 2015. This could be done either by an addition to the existing routes or new cities in India. The launch of our Mumbai route is a clear indication of the enduring relationship between India and the UAE.” When asked whether in future the airline would look at investing into an Indian carrier for expansion, Gaith replied, “Our current focus is on providing the best quality services on our existing routes and expansion of our services to under-served destinations. However, even though there is a huge growth opportunity in the Indian aviation sector, we do not have the mandate as an airline company to invest into airlines out of Dubai.”
The airline commenced its India operations in 2010 and has connections to cities such as Ahmedabad, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kochi, Lucknow, Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram. Sudhir Sreedharan, senior vice-president, commercial operations (Indian sub-continent/GCC/Africa), flydubai informed, “flydubai has a network of 86 destinations, of which 54 were previously under-served. About 70 per cent of our business is point to point services. We are working with the aviation ministry authorities to start flights from second and tertiary markets in India. flydubai is keen to provide air services to the under-served destination including the north east region of India, but we are unable to do so due to capacity constraints.”
Sreedharan added, “The airline has a fleet of 41 new generation Boeing 737-800 aircraft and by next year the airline will have 50 aircraft fleet size. Further, the airline will take delivery of more than 100 aircraft by the end of 2023. flydubai operates more than 1,100 flights a week across the Middle East, GCC, Africa, Caucasus, Central Asia, Europe and the Indian sub-continent.
