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Air India
introduced a direct flight from Kolkata to London Saturday. The new flight, which is being operated on the Delhi-Dhaka-Kolkata-London route on thrice
weekly basis on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, will also provide connectivity between Delhi-Dhaka; Dhaka-Kolkata and Dhaka-London.
Speaking on the
occasion of the launch, Mr Praful Patel, Minister of State for Civil
Aviation said that this new initiative was a part of the Government’s plan to develop more and more international routes. "For years Delhi and
Mumbai have been focal points for air traffic, but for a country as big as India we need to develop other cities not only for the growth of the aviation sector, but also for
overall economic development of the country.”
Mr Patel added that the Government's open sky policy was aimed at expanding the aviation sector across the country for a sustained growth of more than 25% for
the next five years. Both Delhi and Mumbai were now facing capacity constraints and there
is urgent need for moving traffic to other centres to ensure the 25% annual compounded growth rate. The Kolkata-London route was part of this move. He also
said that Air India had undertaken a massive fleet upgrade programme. The airline
plans to purchase 50 more aircraft, with deliveries taking place over
the next seven years.
The flight is being operated with
Boeing 777-200 aircraft, with 272 seats in a three class configuration - 12 First Class, 49 Executive Class and 211
Economy Class seats. While the First Class seats in the Boeing 777s are flat-bed type with privacy partitions, slumberettes have been provided in the Executive Class.
In-arm-video system with LCD displays and multi-channel audio systems are available in all three classes.
Introductory fares are being offered by
Air India on these flights. The round-trip Economy Class fare for Kolkata-London, valid till July 31, 2005, is
Rs.25,810.
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