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Air India has announced to restart its inbound and outbound flights to India connecting Delhi and East Asian destinations. Services to Shanghai will start from 24th June, followed by Tokyo from 26th June and Hong Kong from 6th July 2012.
Air India fans planning to fly between India and East Asian destinations have all the reasons to smile now as the airline has announced reactivation of its services in the region starting from 24th June 2012.
Air India was recently hit by a strike underpinned by which it had to cancel its services to seven international destinations. However, the airline has finally announced to restart its flights connecting Delhi to East Asian destinations like Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong in phases.
A senior Air India official was quoted as saying, “We have decided to reactive flight services to these destinations in east Asia from June 24. Dates have been decided and we have informed our ticketing agents about the same.”
According to Indian media sources, inbound and outbound flights to India connecting Delhi to Shanghai will start from 24th June 2012, which will be followed by flights to Tokyo from 26th June and Hong Kong from 6th July.
The airline’s official, explaining the reason for revival, said, “We were most badly hit in east Asia sector. Hong Kong was the worst hit. We had very good passenger loads and revenue coming in from this sector which mainly accounts for tourists and business travellers, that’s why reactivation of these services had become a priority for us.”
At present, the airline is offering travel deals only on 38 out of its original 45 routes. Among the seven cancelled international destinations are Hong Kong, Osaka, Seoul and Toronto.
The airline has decided to replace Boeing 777’s with the Airbus aircrafts to operate the new schedule in the East Asia region. Earlier, the airline had to ground the bulk of its B-777s-200 and B-777-400 aircraft in line with the recent strike.
The airline official further said, “We will operate to Hong Kong with the Airbus A-319, to Tokyo with the A-330. Shanghai too will be served by Airbus aircraft.”
Discount Delights for Bahrain Passengers
In its endeavour to please its passengers, the airline also announced that it will decrease airfares by around 10 percent on its flights between India and Bahrain.
The Air India official commenting on the fare reduction said, “We hope that the new reduced fares will help us shore up our market share in the region as we cater to a huge segment of workers travelling between India and the Middle East. This is also the peak season when most of the Indians travel back from the Middle East on holidays.”
The airline’s move to reduce fares by 10 percent may attract budget travellers who look for tickets on relatively cheap flights to India from the Middle East for holiday breaks.