Sharjah based low-cost airline, Air Arabia has witnessed a healthy load factor of 97 per cent from the India sector in 2015. “Today, Air Arabia is a well recognised and well established brand in India, people get value for money and on time performance. The load factor was well over 97 per cent from India in 2015. Also, our Indian team worked very closely with the travel trade to promote the airlines along with a few exciting destinations like Georgia, Armenia, etc in India where we have our network. Sharjah is also getting more and more popular amongst the Indians. So we enjoy a good response from this market,” Shalini Rajan, Head of Sales, Air Arabia said.
Currently, Air Arabia operates 112 weekly flights to 13 cities in India. “As of now, we don’t have any plans to expand the geographical network in India, but in future we will be happy to tap more Tier II and III Cities,” she added.
Speaking about the overall aviation industry in 2016, Rajan added, “2016, overall for the aviation industry in this region is going to be very challenging. There are a lot of political issues happening in this region, which will create a lot of ups and downs in the aviation market. But, India still remains a very strong network for us. We have around two million Indians living in UAE, which itself proves the point. UAE is also now looked upon as a destination wedding place; we see a lot of Indian weddings happening here. To further tap this segment, we are working very closely with a lot of destination wedding planners, as we can bring a lot of tailor made things for the wedding segment.”
Apart from India, Air Arabia is working very closely with countries like Turkey, Jordan, Oman, Armenia and Georgia to promote the airline as well as these destinations. Rajan said, “We are working with a lot of tourism boards in the Middle-East and GCC. These countries encourage the travel trade and media from India to visit their destinations and bring people to these new and unexplored destinations. In this recent visit, I have met a few tour operators in India and have witnessed a good response.
Speaking about the plans for the Indian travel trade in 2016 Rajan added, “We work very closely with Sharjah tourism and we conduct intense workshops throughout India. We recently concluded a successful workshop in India. There is a whole series of roadshows and workshops planned for 2016. Sharjah being very strategically located people can visit other cities like Ras-al- Khaimah and Fujairah also.”
Air Arabia recently appointed Cozmo Travel as their General Sales Agent (GSA) in India. Speaking about the appointment, Jamal Abdulnazar, CEO, Cozmo Travel said, “Since we are the GSA in rest of GCC for Air Arabia, we probably know the business better than any third party. Apart from this, the decision will bring more synergy to the entire business.”
