Jet Airways to add 1,200 seats per day with launch of two new services

Announces direct service to connect Chennai with Paris and Bengaluru with Amsterdam

Jet Airways will be adding around 1,200 seats per day to its offerings by launching two more direct services, connecting Chennai with Paris and Bengaluru with Amsterdam, from October onwards. The company would be focusing on profitable growth rather than pursuing market share, said a senior official from the company.

As on May 1, the company has an offering of over 1 lakh seats per day from India and this would go up by another 1,200 seats per day with the addition of the new direct services, said Praveen Iyer, vice president, Commercial-India Sales, Jet Airways. Of the total capacity, 70,000 seats per day are in the domestic market, while the rest is in the international offerings.

"We have around 18 per cent market share in the domestic segment and around 15-16 per cent in the international one. The market share is directly linked to capacity share, and with some of the other players in the field expanding their capacity, our marketshare has come down from 23 per cent," said Iyer. He added that the company is not just focusing on capacity expansion for the sake of market share, but would look at growth with profitability. It has over 80 per cent occupancy in both domestic and international routes, he added.

The new services will also increase Jet Airways' cumulative daily cargo capacity to Europe by as much as 30 tonnes, apart from reducing transit times for shipments, which were earlier routed via Mumbai and Delhi. The flights will facilitate and enhance export and import of various type of commodities, added the company. It will be deploying Airbus A330 aircraft on these routes. The all-inclusive introductory return fares starts at Rs 33,99 for economy travel and Rs 1,29,999 for premiere travel, apart from offering other holiday packages.

The airline's international network currently has across 16 countries and 20 destinations with over 150 daily flights. The new flights, in codeshare with Air France, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Delta Air Lines, will complement Jet Airways' existing direct operations from Delhi and Mumbai to Amsterdam and onwards to Toronto as well as its direct daily flight from Mumbai to Paris.