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Turkish Airlines to Add More Flights On New Delhi & Mumbai Routes
7th December 2007 - 17:28

Turkish Airlines is looking to enhance its operations to India in terms of both, frequency and route network. The airline is planning to operate five flights per week to Mumbai and New Delhi, where it currently operates three and four flights per week, respectively, before mid-2008. It is looking at operating all the flights by deploying Airbus A330 aircraft instead of the Airbus 310, which it currently uses to serve the New Delhi and Mumbai routes. "At present, we are negotiating with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, India, for allowing us to increase the frequency and for operating bigger aircraft on the routes. We have asked for permission to operate 14 flights to India," said Lokesh Bardia, Manager- Sales and Marketing, India, Turkish Airlines.

Further, the airline intends to start operations to Bangalore and Chennai in India. Explaining the reason behind this, Bardia, said, "Chennai is an important destination for us in terms of cargo operations while Bangalore has a large number of corporate travellers." That apart, the Turkish National Tourist Office is likely to start operations at New Delhi in India by January 15, 2008. Talking about the tourist traffic between the two countries, Bardia offered, "About 80 per cent of Indians visiting Turkey belong to the leisure segment while about 20 per cent are business travellers. Of late, we are getting Indian MICE travellers as well. On an average, we take around 10-15 MICE tourist groups in a month, comprising of 15 to 450 people, from New Delhi and Mumbai to Turkey." He added that there is also a large volume of Turkish tourists wanting to visit India since they relate to the country with Bollywood movies and are keen to see the Taj Mahal