Jet Airways will offer 50 per cent more seats to the fliers on the Mumbai-Singapore route from next month by deploying a higher seating-capacity aircraft amid the rapidly growing demand on the sector, which has seen a 34 per cent spike in the last two years.
Earlier, the full service airline had upgraded its service on the Delhi-Singapore-Delhi route by deploying the Airbus A330-200 aircraft in place of a narrow-body Boeing 737.
With the deployment of wide-body 254-seater Airbus 330-200 in place of single-aisle 168-seater B737-800 aircraft, Jet Airways would operate 86 more seats daily from June 1, a release said today.
The A330-200 offers guests a customised two-cabin seating configuration of 18 seats in premiere (business) class and 236 in economy, it said.
The Naresh Goyal-promoted private airline, in which gulf carrier Etihad also holds 24 per cent stake, currently operates four services -- two from Mumbai and one each from Delhi and Chennai -- to Singapore's Changi Airport.
Mumbai was Changi Airport's fourth fastest growing route in 2015 with an 8.2 per cent year-on-year growth, among other destinations with at least half a million passengers handled from the city during this period.
"We are happy to deploy Jet Airways' spacious and modern wide body aircraft catering to additional capacity on the highly popular Mumbai-Singapore-Mumbai route. This sector has seen a growth in traffic by over 34 per cent in last two years, particularly among business travellers," Jet Airways Whole Time Director Gaurang Shetty said.
In addition, connecting traffic over Singapore to Australia and the ASEAN destinations booked through code share and interline partners is also growing rapidly, he said.
Significantly, Singapore Airlines' long-haul budget arm Scoot is also set to take wings in India with services to Chennai and Amritsar from Singapore from 24th of this month, which is expected to trigger competition further to the South-east Asian country from India.
Besides, Australia is one of two major markets, China being the other one, for Scoot which is looking at India to enhance its presence in the land of Kangaroos.
This upgrade will also offer convenient connections from Mumbai to Australia and the ASEAN region over Singapore on codeshare and interline partner airlines, Jet Airways said.
Passengers on incoming flights from Singapore will be able to avail convenient onward connections to key destinations on Jet Airways' domestic network and beyond to international destinations from Mumbai, it said.
Jet Airways has recently upgraded its service on the Delhi-Singapore-Delhi route by deploying the Airbus A330-200 aircraft.
