)
Taking a leaf out of the Railways' summer specials, budget carrier SpiceJet will operate special flights from Delhi to country's top three tourist hotspots - Srinagar, Goa and Bagdogra - to meet the increased traffic demand during the peak holiday season.
As a part of this policy, the Gurgaon-based carrier has now increased the frequency on the Delhi-Srinagar route to five flights a day from four at present, from June 3.
Services on the Delhi-Goa and Delhi-Bagdogra, which apart from being a gateway to the Northeast is a tourist destination as well, have also been increased to three flights per day from June 3, it said.
Stating that the airline is increasing flights on these routes especially to accommodate more demands for summer vacations, SpiceJet chief commercial officer Kaneswaran Avili said these additional flights will be operated only till June 30, when the summer vacations period ends.
"These routes are tourist destinations and are high in demand during the summer vacations. To cater to the demand this season, we have increased more seats on these routes and hope people will enjoy their vacations with easy flying options," Avili said in a statement.
The airline is also offering an introductory all inclusive fare of Rs 4,999 on the Delhi-Goa and Delhi-Bagdogra routes and Rs 5,999 on Delhi-Srinagar route, the airline said.
It can be noted that the cash-strapped airline has offered six discount sales since January but still could not report profit in the March quarter.
Yesterday, the Kalanidhi Maran-run airline reported a near doubling of its loss at Rs 321.5 crore for the three months to March, up from Rs 185.7 crore a year ago, on increased fuel cost and rupee fall, apart from the ongoing slowdown and softening demand.
Total income from operations during the January-March quarter rose 8.4 per cent to Rs 1,589.61 crore during the reporting period.
For the full financial year, SpiceJet's loss was at Rs 1,003.24 crore as against Rs 191.07 crore in FY13, even though income rose 11.51 per cent to Rs 6,356.11 crore.
