Emirates is seeking to add A380 services to its existing Indian routes to Delhi and Hyderabad, as well as open routes to new cities in the country (such as Mangalore, Pune, Trichy and Amritsar), once an agreement has been made between the UAE and India on upping the seat capacity allocated to the Gulf carrier.
Speaking at the India Aviation show, Ahmed Khoory, commercial operations, West Asia and Indian Ocean for Emirates, was quoted by Indian media as saying: “We have ten points (cities) in India. We are trying to expand as much as we can. With the limited seat capacity we are very much restricted today to these ten points.
“If the bilateral agreement goes through, we can gain seats and we can cover most of the points in India. Our objective is to cover as much as we can.”
Khoory’s comments come days after the Dubai government formally requested an increase of 50,000 seats in total capacity for Dubai flights bound for India.
Emirates currently offers 65,000 seats on 185 flights to India per week, but the airline executive stressed that an increase of an additional 50,000 seats would still not be enough to satisfy demand.
“Even a 100,000 seating capacity is not enough for us,” Khoory said to Business Standard.
For more information, visit emirates.com
Clement Huang
