Air-India Express Bahrain, Doha services in pandemonium

Dubai, Mar 11 (UNI) Low-cost airline Air-India Express, which shelved plans to operate to Bahrain and Doha from next month, might not start the services even in winter, an airline spokesman has said.

It has also decided to take off the scheduled flights from Gulf countries to Delhi and Mumbai because of the low load factor.

While flights from Kerala to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and other destinations in the Gulf report a load factor of more than 90 per cent, those from Delhi and Mumbai have less than 50 per cent prompting the scrapping of the April start-off.

''We have decided to delink Mumbai and Delhi from the revised summer schedule, while we have added Chennai to the Air-India Express network,'' the official told Bahrain Tribune.

This has been decided to cater to the growing passenger demand expected on the South Indian routes.

The airline, which began services last year, flies to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Muscat and Salalah, from Kozhikode, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai and Delhi.

Dubai-based Air-India regional director Sanjeev Talwar said the South India sector, particularly Kerala, made the most commercial sense.

Air-India Express is expected to have a fleet of seven by May and nine by the year-end when it receives the first of the 18, B737-800 aircraft.

UNI XC PV DS1353