September 15, 2007 – The Indian Govt. ultimately realized that Jet was as important as Air India for free flying to middle-east, which the people in general have welcome the move since it shall most certainly give added traveling advantages to those who prefer Jet for various reasons.

Jet Airways shall be able to fly beyond the country that was not allowed  not allowed for the private players earlier. But now government has open the space for the private players to fly towards the gulf countries that is the most beneficial overseas route after the Indo-US route.

Naresh Goyal, the president of Jet airways must be extremely happy after getting permission to fly outside the country. Only Jet can fly to gulf countries like Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and United Arab Emirates as only jet fulfils the condition of the government.

According to government norms, the private players must have to complete five years of operations and having a fleet of at least 20 aircraft in their kit. Soon Air Deccan along with Kingfisher and SpiceJet are also lobbying to go overseas after completing the government norms.

After breaking the government monopoly, in which the flights of only Air India and Indian Airlines (after merging) can go to the overseas, now the private but cheap flights would be available for the 4 million of customers living in the gulf countries. The fare of Indo-Gulf route would be decreased by at least 10 percent as the Indian government flights are not be able to fulfil all the seats of their quota because of having higher fare.

The fare of Indo-Gulf route is much higher in Indian Airways or Air India flights than Jazeera Airways and Ethihad Airways that have the return ticket of Delhi-Kuwait is only Rs. 10,000. It is assumed that after flying free to the overseas, the private players of India will be able to switch some potential from these airways to India by providing the best facilities to the customers in the very cheap tariff.

Jet has been permitted to carry 3,682 passengers to Kuwait per week from three destinations in India in which 1,582 passengers would be from the Delhi-Kuwait route while 1,050 passengers each from Trivandrum-Kuwait and Kochi-Kuwait routes. The allotted routes are: Delhi-Kuwait, Trivandrum-Kuwait, Kochi-Kuwait, Kochi-Muscat, Trivandrum-Muscat, Calicut-Muscat, Mumbai-Doha, Calicut-Doha route, Mumbai-Bahrain and Kochi-Bahrain.

According to statistics, there is atleast 40 percent traffic of all international air traffic from India on to the Gulf routes, while the capacity of Indian carriers are significantly higher, it is less than 50% globally.

Indian carriers on the Gulf routes are allowed a total of 85,481 seats per week, include 21,950 seats from Dubai, 7,420 from Abu Dhabi, 10,206 from Sharjah, 8,000 from Kuwait, 10,892 from Qatar, 7,546 from Oman, 10,967 from Bahrain and 8,500 from Saudi Arabia, but Indian carriers are carrying an average of 49,348 seats per weeks from the gulf countries.

Jet Airways is expected to deploy its Airbus 737-800s and 330-200s on these routes on a daily basis from January 01, 2008, according to Naresh Goyal, the owner of Jet Airways. Naresh is also eyeing to further expansion to US, the most revenue generating air route of India.

Full Story: http://www.newstrackindia.com/newsdetails/900