Air India Plans Direct Flights to Melbourne

Amidst the dark clouds that seem to have engulfed the Indian aviation sector, there comes some good news akin to silver lining!

Air India, India’s flag carrier announced its proposed plans to initiate Delhi- Melbourne non-stop services later this year. The airline is looking to launch direct flights to Melbourne once it takes the delivery of Boeing 787 Dreamliner in mid-2012.

Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu arranged for a meeting with country’s Civil Aviation Minister and discussed with him the probable launch of AI’s flights to Melbourne from country’s capital city.

Air India believes there is enough demand for the service and hopes it will do good business on the route. Industry estimates puts the annual traffic between India and Australia at around 3, 35,000 passengers. Air traffic between India and Melbourne and Sydney is around 1, 30,000 passengers each. So, there is enough space to fill and enough passengers who will be seeking cheap flight tickets on the travel route!

Air India has received many concessional deals from the Government of Victoria and New South Wales. The airline is hoping for more as it conducts fresh negotiations with the governments of Victoria and New South Wales as well as the Airport Authority at Sydney and Melbourne. The concessions are sought to make flights cost-effective. Tourists would like to hope that the cost-effectiveness is translated into cheap flight tickets for them.

Once the AI flights take the sky on the Delhi- Melbourne route, the airline would become the only carrier offering direct services for India-Australia market.

Reference