Kuwait-based Jazeera Airways is awaiting additional seat allocation to operationalise its India expansion plans, the budget carrier’s chief executive Rohit Ramachandran told FE.
According to Ramachandran, the seat capacity allocated to the airline (12,000 seats per week) has not been increased since 2007, when the Indian population in Kuwait was only around 300,000.
“Kuwait’s current population is around four million, out of which 1.1 million are Indians. There is a huge demand for connectivity,” Ramachandran told FE.
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Further, he said the increase in the expatriate population of Indians in Kuwait, and their aspirations for affordable travel to their home cities, require an increase in air service entitlements for carriers of both countries. “About 50,000 seats a week would be more than adequate to cater to this demand.”
The government has not been in favour of granting more seats to West Asia-based airlines, in a bid to promote long-haul routes operated by Indian carriers.
Earlier this week, civil aviation secretary Rajiv Bansal said at the ongoing CAPA India summit, that “we have not been giving any additional seats to any Middle East carriers” and that the stance will continue.
Ramachandran said that for the low-cost carrier, point-to-point traffic has always been higher than onward traffic. “Jazeera sees more VFR (visiting friends and relatives) travellers to cities in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In metros like Mumbai and Delhi, we see VFR as well as leisure traffic to onward destinations.” Less than 15% of the traffic flows through Kuwait, to other destinations, while 85% is point to point, he said.
He said Jazeera Airways currently flies to eight cities in India: Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. “We would like to expand to other cities like Goa, Amritsar, Lucknow, Jaipur, Vijayawada, Trichy and Madurai.”
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“We see a very vibrant Indian aviation market with travellers in India becoming more adventurous — especially with a growing middle-income population.”
In 2022, the airline closed with a 92% load factor “that demonstrated the demand for travel from India. So far, 2023 has been good and we are hoping to close with a load factor of around 95%”.