In what is a first for any Indian airline, IndiGo on Friday announced flights to destinations in Africa and Central Asia apart from Indonesia, which too was unserved by direct flights.
IndiGo’s foray into new regions follows its entry into Europe with direct flights to Istanbul in 2019.
The airline also plans to connect North America through its tie-up with Turkish Airlines with a one-stop in Istanbul.
Destinations in Africa include Nairobi in Kenya which will be connected with Mumbai, while Tbilisi in Georgia and Baku in Azerbaijain will be connected with Delhi. These routes will be launched between July and August.
In Central Asia, IndiGo will connect Tashkent in Uzbekistan and Almaty in Kazakhstan with Delhi from September.
The new launches will be connected with the help of IndiGo’s A321neo aircraft. The airline will now have a total of 32 destinations, up from 26, and also add 176 weekly flights.
Hong Kong will also be added back after Covid-19 forced the airline to suspend the route in 2020 due to Covid-19.
The airline also said that it will expand connectivity between West Asia and smaller cities, including Dammam to Lucknow, Chennai, and Kochi; Abu Dhabi to Goa, Lucknow, and Ahmedabad; Ras Al Khaimah to Hyderabad; Bahrain to Kochi and Jeddah to Ahmedabad over the next few months. The airline will commence flights from Bhubaneshwar to Singapore and Bangkok from June 2023.
The airline currently has 25% of its capacity deployed on international flights, which will receive a further boost with the latest announcement.
The travel fraternity welcomed the news. “This will offer three-pronged benefit of new routes, direct connectivity and introduction of attractive short/mid hauls - creating viable opportunity in the face of visa challenges for long hauls like Europe and USA,” said Indiver Rastogi, President & Group Head, Global Business Travel, Thomas Cook (India) and SOTC Travel.
The announcement is also expected to lower airfares for Indian travellers. “Indians are looking for differentiated & unique experiences and all these new destinations will offer just that. Moreover, travellers will find fares more affordable on these direct flights and the demand for these routes will certainly be good,” said Gaurav Patwari, Vice President, Air, Cleartrip.
Loveleen Multani Arun, Founder-Director, Panache World, a boutique travel company based in Bangalore said that these destinations were also pocket-friendly and have easy visa availability which would also mean good load factors for the airline.
