TIRUCHY: Air India Express (AIE) is expecting to make a profit of Rs 500 crore this financial year, according to Chief Executive Officer (CEO) K Shyam Sundar. He was speaking in Tiruchy while announcing new destinations for the airline from the city.
The Air India subsidiary on Thursday announced direct flights to Doha, Abu Dhabi and New Delhi from Tiruchy. “We are planning to start operations to Abu Dhabi, Doha and Delhi from March 28. In a week, we would have four flights to Abu Dhabi and three flights to Doha,” said the CEO.
Currently, AIE operates flights to Dubai, Sharjah and Singapore from the city.
Officials said the airline is getting good traffic with its existing operations from Tiruchy. Officials said the airline would have daily flights between New Delhi and Tiruchy via Madurai next month.
“We have four weekly non-stop flights between Delhi and Madurai. We have decided to extend the service of this flight to Tiruchy. Therefore, the Delhi-Tiruchy flight would be via Madurai,” said Sundar.
Officials said the low-cost carrier made a record profit in 2019-20. “The airline earned revenue of Rs 3,124.34 crore in the first six months of 2019-20. This is about 75 per cent of total revenue last fiscal. The half-yearly net profit of the current fiscal was Rs 679.8 crore, against Rs177.3 crore during the same period last year. During 2018-18, our revenue was Rs 4,171.5 crore and net profit Rs 168.5 crore. This financial year, we are expecting operational revenue of Rs 5,000 crore,” he said.
Focus on short-haul trips Officials said AIE is more interested in operating to international destinations
within a distance of four-and-a-half hours.
“We operate a fleet of 25 Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft. So, we prefer international destinations within four-and-a-half hours. Though Tiruchy-Kuwait is a profitable, travel time is about five hours,” said Sundar.