Jet Airways to fly US, Canada

Aiming at 50 per cent revenue from its international operations in three years, Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet Airways is planning to launch flights to New York in August followed by San Francisco and Toronto.

Jet Airways will launch direct daily flights from Delhi and Kolkata to Bangkok from January 23, 2007. Jet Airways Chief Executive Officer Wolfgang Prock-Schauer said : " Flight to San Francisco via Shanghai is likely to start in October 2007. We will be able to fly to Gulf destinations by early 2008. We are also looking at South Africa and Kenya."

The airline will be having 22 widebodies aircraft by 2008-09. Earlier Jet Chairman Naresh Goyal had said that the airline is aiming at 50:50 ratio for revenues from international and domestic operations in next three years.

The airline is looking at key destinations including Mauritius, Rome, Zurich, Munich, Frankfurt and certain points in South East Asia.

Regarding Thailand flights, the new Boeing 737-800 aircraft, which will bring the Jet Airways fleet size to 59 next month, will be used to operate the flights to Bangkok from Delhi and Kolkata, will seat 24 in Club Premiere and 126 in the Economy section.

Prock-Schauer said, "Bangkok will be the 50th destination on our network and the third destination we operate to in the ASEAN Region. Jet Airways will be fulfiling this need with 14 direct flights per week to Bangkok, seven each from Delhi and Kolkata."

As inaugural offer, Jet Airways has introduced a special return air fare of Rs 6,500 on the Kolkata-Bangkok-Kolkata sector for a two month period while economy class fares start at Rs 13,500 on the Delhi-Bangkok-Delhi sector.

The return airfare for Club Premiere for the Delhi-Bangkok sector ranges from Rs 28,500 to Rs 38,000 while on the Kolkata-Bangkok sector it is between Rs 18,500 and Rs 26,000.

These fares are exclusive of taxes. Jet Airways' operates over 330 daily flights to 49 destinations including London, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Colombo and Kathmandu.

The airline plans to extend its international operations to North America, Europe, Africa and Asia in the coming years with the induction of wide-body aircraft into its fleet in 2007.