KOCHI: Those who are disappointed with the lack of connectivity by national budget carrier Air India Express to a variety of international destinations can now rejoice. The AIE is in the process of knitting a tieup with another budget carrier Fly Dubai to take people from Dubai to their destinations. The tie-up is expected to come in place in one or two months and the check-in luggage will have a seamless passage via Dubai to the destination and the passenger once checked in need to collect it only at their final destination.
This has been made possible with the AIE recently securing the IATA Operational Safety Audit (IOSA) certification which enhanced its international standing. “Passengers who disembark at Dubai in an AIE flight can embark on the Fly Dubai flight from the same terminal,” said AIE CEO K Shyam Sundar here. He said that the tieup was made possible because AIE and Fly Dubai have the same ticketing system and have same type of aircraft. “Because of this they can book the ticket for the entire journey on AIE platform. The same type of aircraft have over 185 seats in all economy class in both airlines which makes the inter-ariline arrangement perfect,” Mr Shyam Sundar added.
Those destinations which are in four to five hour distance from Dubai will be served through this arrangement and the top destinations include Istanbul, Teheran, Moscow, Jeddah and most of Africa. “We are operating 90 percent of the service to Dubai which make the tieup feasible,” he said.In another major step, AIE will fly directly to Doha three times a week from Kochi from August 15 which will go up to four times a week from September 15. “This service assumes significance in the wake of the Qatar crisis. We have so far not connected Kochi directly to Doha and the current services are via Kozhikode,” he added. The AIE CEO also said that the fleet number of AIE will go up to 25 from 23 in the current financial year and the airline will also connect Surat and Madurai to Dubai apart from Kannur.
