Regional Round-Up
Jet Airways eyes Bangkok as mini-hub
December 1st 2014
Etihad Airways protégé, Jet Airways wants to turn Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport into a mini-hub to extend its network to East Asia and take advantage of the fifth and sixth freedom rights already in place between India and Thailand, the Abu Dhabi carrier told The Bangkok Post. Read More » Jet Airways’ new management believes the implementation of the Asean Economic Community Open Skies in 2015 will be a major driver for air passenger growth between India and East Asia. Stationing a fleet of single-aisle B737 aircraft in Bangkok and feeding them with traffic from its multiple daily India-Thailand services is seen by the airline as critical to opening new routes that would otherwise be financially unviable if served directly by the Mumbai-based carrier. “That’s the way to go, and we should see something happening in the next two years,” said Wallop Bhukkanasut, newly appointed adviser to Jet Airways’ chief executive, Cramer Ball, 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.
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Reports in India suggest that Jet Airways is shifting away from the domestic market by pulling out of a several local routes and utilizing the aircraft for international destinations served by its part owner, 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 to markets that have the highest value for the network as a cohesive system. Earlier this year, Jet announced it would connect 23 Indian cities to Etihad’s Abu Dhabi home base. It currently serves the UAE capital from Bengalaru, Delhi, Kochi and Mumbai.
