India has certainly not operated scheduled worldwide flights to Central Asia or Russia.
New Delhi:
IndiGo will develop a flight group to Russia and the Central Asian nations all through the following few months, a senior official of the airline said on Friday.
While scheduled worldwide passenger flight firms keep suspended in India since March 23 due to the Coronavirus pandemic, specific worldwide flights have been working with the permission of aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
During the previous couple of weeks, IndiGo has operated passenger structure flights and cargo structure flights to nations like Russia, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, its Chief Strategy and Revenue Officer Sanjay Kumar said.
“The last couple of weeks have given us a great learning on the potential of these markets, which were kind of unexplored from our point of view so far,” Kumar said at a webinar titled ”The Way Forward for Developing India-Central Asia Air Corridor” that was organised by commerce physique Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI).
“I think we will be able to build up some kind of portfolio of routes and network into these markets going forward in the next few months” time,” he added.
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan are part of Central Asia. India has certainly not operated scheduled worldwide flights to Central Asia or Russia.
Talking regarding the structure flights operated to Russia and the Central Asian nations amid the pandemic, Kumar said, “We were quite surprised with the potential of the market because one-way the flight is going full load and on the other way it is coming empty and despite that, we were able to cover all our operational costs from both ends,” he added.
“I think we will be able to put more and more emphasis going forward looking at the potential of the regular flights into these markets – both on the cargo side and on the passenger side,” he said.
Since July, India has established air bubble preparations with nations similar to the US, the UK, France, Germany, the UAE, Qatar and the Maldives.
Under a bilateral air bubble pact, airways of every the nations can operate worldwide flights with certain restrictions.
Scheduled worldwide passenger flights proceed to remain suspended in India since March 23 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
On August 18, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Twitter air bubbles have moreover been proposed with our neighbours Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal and Bhutan.
He said India is negotiating air bubble preparations with 13 completely different nations.
“These countries include Australia, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Nigeria, Bahrain, Israel, Kenya, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea and Thailand,” Mr Puri added.
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