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AirAsia India will start operations in Chandigarh and Jaipur from September 5. The airline will start daily flights from Bangalore to Jaipur and Bangalore to Chandigarh and vice-versa. This would be the carrier's first push into north India. Currently, it operates flights from Bangalore to Chennai, Kochi, Goa, and Kochi and vice-versa.
Speaking to Business Standard, AirAsia India, CEO, Mittu Chandilya said, "There is a huge potential as currently there are no direct flights from Chandigarh to Bangalore and Jaipur to Bangalore. So we decided to commence operations in these two cities. We would be deploying airbus A320 for the purpose."
The air carrier operates a single Airbus A320 plane and inducted one more on Tuesday for the commencement of the flights to the new destinations. Overall, the air carrier intends to increase the number of planes to six by the year end.
He added, "We are adding one more Airbus A320 on Tuesday and after this, we would be adding one aircraft every month, taking the total fleet size to six by the end of this year."
Chandilya said, "Given the size of population in India, there is a great potential to expand as the percentage of the people travelling by air is still low compared to other countries. We wanted to make sure that we make the right move and get our fares right at the same time. Starting flights to Jaipur and Chandigarh was a strategic decision since we wanted to accelerate our operations in North, considering the demand for our services. We might expand in West and North-East. In short, we are planning to add five new destinations in next two months." He, however, declined to divulge the name of the cities where the airline intends to commence its operations.
"We have identified 12-13 cities and are in the process of shortlisting them, so it is premature to share the names of the cities," he said. AirAsia India (Pvt) Ltd is a joint venture between Tata Sons Ltd, Telestra Tradeplace and AirAsia.
He said the company will be associated with IPL team Kings XI Punjab as one of the sponsors for the IPL event held last year.
