Air India to "unlock potential", says TA
Tourism Australia has described direct Air India flights to Australia as critical to unlocking the potential of the market as the launch of services finally appeared to be firming up.
After a protracted on-off saga, Air India has announced that daily B787 services will start on August 29 with the first flight touching down in Melbourne on August 30.
Air India said it will operate three weekly Delhi-Melbourne-Sydney-Delhi flights and four operating to Sydney then onto Melbourne and back to Delhi.
It will be the first time for 16 years that Air India has operated to Australia.
Air India commercial director Deepak Brara said the carrier wanted to give Sydney and Melbourne “the benefit of non-stop services”.
With the airline already taking bookings, Brara said that “should afford some degree of certainty”.
“There have been many [delays],” he was quoted as saying. “The reason has been the delay in the delivery of the 787s and the groundings.”
News of the launch will be greeted with immense relief by Tourism Australia. Such has been the uncertainty surrounding the services that the tourism agency said it will only believe in the service when aircraft touch down in Australia.
But Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy today welcomed the announcement.
“Key to unlocking India’s long term tourism potential is improved air access and capacity,” he said. “Securing direct flights to Australia is critical to securing a share of the 50 million Indians expected to travel overseas by 2020.
“Preliminary analysis suggests we’ll need around 345,000 additional seats to meet the expected demand for Australia from India out to 2020. On top of the capacity that already exists, these new direct services soon to be launched by Air India represent a huge boost in realising the full potential of this important market.”
TA has set out a goal to grow arrivals from 160,000 in 2012 to 300,000 by 2020 and increase the economic value from $800 million to $2.3 billion.
According to reports in the Sydney Morning Herald, Air India said it was talking to Qantas over a possible codeshare but that was quickly rejected by Qantas which said it has “no plans” to establish such an arrangement.
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
air india airlines andrew mcevoy brara deepak tourism tourism australiaLatest News
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