Airliners-India.com

sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 2365 Location: Singapore

Air Arabia CEO, Adel Ali, stated the carrier was in the preliminary planning stages of opening a second operating base in the Middle East, India or the Mediterranean (Gulf News, 03-May-07).

Air Arabia: "We feel very confident going forward into 2007, and we are looking at other opportunities to set up hubs in the Middle East and India, and we are working on those things. There are a lot of areas in the Middle East marketplace that are opening up," Adel Ali, CEO. Source: Gulf News, 03-May-07.

Arab Air Carriers Organisation reports (02-May-07) the following passenger traffic highlights for the three months ended 31-Mar-07:

Passenger numbers: +8.2% year-on-year;
International: +11.3%;
Within Arab world: +2.1%. [more]

Sri_Bom

BigTom · Member Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 271 Location: Dubai, UAE

Air Arabia is more likely though to get another base in either Jordan, Lebanon or Egypt, opening up the European market for their ops rather than a hub in India. GOI may look askance at the idea with most of our airports currently near or at full capacity already.

Cheers

HAWK21M · Posted: Thu May 03, 2007 2:27 pm Post subject:

I wonder which location in India.Forget the metros Smile

regds
MEL
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BigTom · Member Joined: 21 Mar 2007 Posts: 271 Location: Dubai, UAE

If it happens will have to be somewhere like BLR, HYD or COK as they are the only ones to generate onward traffic apart from BOM/DEL to the kind of places they will fly to.

COUGAR · Member Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 986 Location: Bangalore

Actually an idea like this could work: provided the airline in question got the permits to setup and operate a local susbdiary (something like Deccan attempted in Lanka.

Heres what could work: a "Hub" in NAG with a sub-fleet of 3/4 A320's and 2 A330-200 which would fly a network of international routes to AUH, DXB, SHJ, MCT etc. Simultaneously they tie-up with a local low-cost carrier like SpiceJet or Deccan (pref OS) which would have its own sub-fleet of 737's or 3/4 A320/ATR aircraft based in NAG and build a domestic network out of NAG to connect with Arabias flights out of and into NAG in a feeder arrangement. They could offer through fares from destinations like PNQ,HYD,CCU, AMD, MAA etc to all the destinations in the Arabia-India operations!

This could also be beneficial to the Indian LCC partner. Pax coming from PNQ for eg could get connections to CCU, LKO etc via-NAG.

I would say: definitely workable! BUt this would be the final nail in the coffin of that dead horse of Indian socialist past: Air India which the govt is so desperately tryng to revive.
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