Malaysia Air to increase services

Malaysia Airlines on Thursday said it will add 15 new services to India over the next eight to 12 months in a move to counter competition from Indian carriers that have started services to Malaysia.

The airlines will also start services to non-metro cities in India. In the immediate future, the carrier will add three new services to India, taking the total number of services to 33. This will be increased subsequently over the next few months.

"India is a very fast growing market with international traffic projected to grow over 18 per cent per annum. This is a very key market for us," said Christopher Yea, Malaysia Airlines' regional manager for South Asia. The airlines expects that the Indian market has the potential to reach 60 million passengers per year by 2012.

This move comes at a time, when Indian private carrier Jet Airways has started daily services to Kuala Lumpur from Chennai and Indian Airlines from Delhi. Besides, Air Sahara is also expected to start daily services to Kuala Lumpur from Delhi. In addition, Air Sahara had also announced rock-bottom introductory return fares at Rs 10, 000 to Kuala Lumpur.

According to aviation industry sources, with Malaysia Airlines also adding more capacity to India, the average airfare between the two countries could come down by as much as 20 per cent from the present Rs 15,000. It is also worth noting that Malaysia Airlines had also announced some special packages last month.

To expand its services to India, Malaysia Airlines will increase the number of services between Delhi and Kuala Lumpur to daily from the present four times a week.

This move will increase the total number of seats between Delhi and Kuala Lumpur to 2,058 seats per week from the present 1, 176 seats.

"Our very next step in the expansion will be adding Amrtisar in the October 2005, followed by services to Kochi and Trivandrum early next year," Yea said.

Malaysia Airlines will also be exploring opportunities in the areas of airport upgradation, technology consultation, aircraft maintenance, and pilot and crew training. Besides, it will also look at operating services to secondary Indian cities.