Malaysia's AirAsia group plans to start six new routes to India in this year's first quarter.
The six new routes are: Penang-Chennai from 28 April, Kuala Lumpur-Chennai from 17 May, Kuala Lumpur-Bangalore from 20 May, Kuala Lumpur-Hyderabad from 20 July, Kuala Lumpur-Mumbai from 6 May and Kuala Lumpur-New Delhi from 4 August.
All six routes will be operated daily, except Kuala Lumpur-Mumbai, which will be four times a week.
AirAsia will operate Airbus A320s for Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad; while its long-haul operator AirAsia X will launch the Mumbai and New Delhi services with Airbus A330s.
AirAsia group, which already flies to four Indian cities, will operate 148 weekly flights to India and aims to carry two million passengers to India and back this year, says group CEO Tony Fernandes.
"AirAsia has well-arrived in the Indian market to change the very definition of low-cost airlines as the India market is booming," he adds.
The airline already operates to Kolkata, Kochi, Trichy and Trivandrum.
"We've worked to cover China with our network over the last three years, and now that we've done that, it's time to focus on India, which is a huge market as well," says AirAsia's regional head of commercial Kathleen Tan.
"There is a lot of demand for low-cost fares from India. Before this, many Indians were already flying to Bangkok and Indonesia to connect to our routes," she adds. AirAsia has associate carriers in Thailand and Indonesia.
The carrier hopes that travellers will fly to Kuala Lumpur and from there, connect to AirAsia's over 130 routes, says Tan.
Going forward, AirAsia is studying launching flights from Amritsar to Bangkok, she adds.
"We are in the process of getting feedback to see what else people want," she says.
Despite the growing Indian aviation market and reports of Indian low-cost carrier SpiceJet's plans to start international operations, Tan says there is room for competition.
"India is such a big market and competition is healthy. We have such a big network, we can cross-promote our flights to India in China and other countries that we already serve," she adds.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
