Naresh Goyal-controlled Jet Airways plans to revive its Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco air service following a recovery in international
air traffic.
The airline had earlier withdrawn its long-haul flight due to economic downturn resulting into poor demand on the sector.
“We can start our flight to Shanghai any time,” an airline official said on condition of anonymity. The airline would also launch a flight to Johannesburg next month.
The official said the airline already has government nod to operate daily flights to Shanghai. “When we last started flight to Shanghai the load was below 50% making the operation commercially unviable,” he said.
Jet Airways has seen a significant jump in traffic on its foreign routes and is currently managing a load factor of over 80% on several routes including the long-haul flight to Europe and North America.
When contacted a Jet Airways official spokesperson said the airline keeps evaluating various routes for operation. “We can not confirm the plan to restart flight to Shanghai at this point of time,” she said.
With the world economy rebounding in recent months, demand for air travel has significantly improved encouraging airlines to add capacity on their network. “The traffic on the India-US sector has gone up nearly 20% compared to last February. Although traffic to Shanghai is very limited, the onward traffic to the West Coast including San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles is quite good,” Amadeus India managing director Ankur Bhatia said.
Jet Airways also plans to introduce Mumbai-Colombo flight. It already has a Chennai-Colombo service. Following the economic downturn, Jet Airways put on hold its plan to expand its international network. As per official data, international traffic from and to India has increased 12% in the last few months. The two BSE-listed airline companies Jet Airways and SpiceJet posted profits of Rs 105 and Rs 109 crore respectively in the last quarter on the back of improved traffic and yield.
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