Emirates launches direct flight to Bangalore

Emirates on Monday started a direct flight service connecting Bangalore to West Asian countries and then links onto North America and Europe. The airline will now operate eight flights a week to Bangalore.

With the new service, Emirates wants to cash in on the city's booming, IT-driven economy. The Dubai-based airline has now increased its presence in India to 71 flights a week to eight destinations. Of this, 39 flights are to south India.

To encourage passengers to stop over in Dubai, Emirates also launched a Dubai Visa Processing Centre in Bangalore. Passengers applying for a visa to Dubai can now apply with Emirates as their sponsor, instead of looking for a UAE-based sponsor. The visa would be granted within three working days of the application.

The airline also announced Bangalore-Dubai-Bangalore stopover deals. Till February next year, passengers flying first, business and economy class will get a complimentary three, two and one night stay in Dubai respectively.

Although tourists constitute an important passenger segment, the airline said it wanted to provide regular and direct connectivity to the IT professionals who needed to travel abroad more often.

Emirates said India was an important destination for it and that after launching direct flights to Thiruvanthapuram and Kolkata and adding capacity to its Chennai and Delhi routes this year, it may start flights to Ahmedabad and Pune next.

"We have the second largest number of flights to India, after the UK. The Indian subcontinent accounts for 8.5 per cent of our global revenue and we want to increase our presence in the country rapidly," Emirates' Senior Vice-President (Commercial Operations) West Asia and Indian Ocean, Nabil Sultan said.

"We would like to promote Dubai as a tourism and business destination in India and part of our efforts would be to promote India as a tourism destination to the world," Sultan added.

Sultan said the airline had more flights to south India than the north as the south had a more booming and vibrant economy.

According to G Kumar Naik, commissioner, Department of Tourism, Karnataka, the new service would give a fillip to tourism in Karnataka. Naik said he would focus on promoting Bangalore as a hot spot for medical tourism. "Medical tourism is the buzzword right now and Bangalore is being seen as an important destination. Our medical sector is gearing up to meet the challenge," Naik said.

About the aviation industry facing financial losses due to rising fuel prices, Sultan said they were trying to counter the challenges by focussing on busy routes. "We try to attract more passengers and get more traffic on the prime routes," Sultan said.