Airline News
Jet Airways eyes Bangkok hub, cuts domestic capacity
December 2nd 2014
Etihad-protégé Jet Airways told the Bangkok Post that it wants to turn Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK) into a mini-hub to extend its network to East Asia by taking advantage of the fifth and sixth freedom rights already in place between India and Thailand. Read More »
Jet Airways thinks the implementation of the Asean Economic Community next year will be a major driver for air passenger growth between India and East Asia. Stationing a fleet of single-aisle B737 aircraft at BKK and feeding them with traffic from its multiple daily India-BKK services is seen by the airline as key to opening new routes that would otherwise be financially unviable if served directly.
"That's the way to go, and we should see something happening over the next two years," said Wallop Bhukkanasut, newly appointed adviser to Jet Airways' chief executive and vice-president for Southeast Asia and Australasia. “We need to get in before all the flight slots are taken by others,” the ex-Thai Airways executive chairman continued.
Meanwhile, Indian media reports are suggesting that Jet Airways is shifting focus away from the domestic market by pulling out of a number of local routes and using the spare aircraft to international destinations served by partner Etihad. In an official statement to India’s Economic Times, the carrier said it is restructuring its network to "optimise operations in this over-capacitated industry environment" and deploying capacity on markets that have the highest value for the network as a cohesive system. It earlier this year announced a plan to connect 23 Indian cities to Etihad’s base in Abu Dhabi by the end of next year. It currently serves the UAE capital from Bengalaru, Delhi, Kochi and Mumbai only.
