Air Arabia to set up fleet strength

Chennai, Nov 3: The Sharjah-based low cost airliner Air Arabia will be increasing its fleet strength to ten from the current eight by early next year, its CEO Adel Ali said today.

Addressing newspersons at the launch of the Chennai-Sharjah Service here, Mr Ali said the service was launched within a year and half of its successful operations in India during which time they brought the first international low-fare airline to India.

The Chennai-Sharjah route was the fifth service to Chennai.

Sometime next week, Air Arabia would launch Thiruvanathapuram and Sharjah service.

The Gulf-India route was one of the fastest growing markets for Air Arabia and they were pleased to be part of this expansion and development.

They were now directly flying to Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, India, Iran, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Sri lanka, Sudan, Syria, Turkey and Yemen.

To help Air Arabia passengers, the airline opened an electronic visa assistance centre in their offices with the permission of UAE immigration authorities to help in visa formalities for those visiting the Emirates.

In keeping with its international philosophy of offering affordable travel on all its routes, Air Arabia announced fares for the Sharjah route starting at Rs 3,800 exclusive of taxes and surcharge.

Responding to a question, Mr Ali said they were ready to operate more services by connecting other cities in the sub-continent if the Indian Government granted them permission.

Mr Rohit Ramachandran, Regional Manager, India, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan said they were pleased to launch daily operations between Chennai to Sharjah.

The flight will depart Sharjah at 2205 hrs and reach here at 0430 hrs. In its return direction, the flight will leave here at 0515 hrs and reach Sharjah at 0740 hrs.

UNI