Air India Express to connect to Singapore via Madurai

Kochi: The Air India Express will start a new service to Singapore via Madurai from Kochi and another Kochi-Kuwait-Dammam service in its winter schedule effective from March 25. Both the services of Air India's budget airline will be thrice a week.

AIE chief executive officer K. Shyam Sundar said at a press conference on Tuesday that the Singapore flights would be on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, departing from Kochi at 11.10 am.

The arrival and departure from Madurai will be at 11.55 am and 1.10 pm respectively. The flight will arrive at Singapore at 8.10 pm. With this, the Madurai Singapore service will become daily also.

Kochi to Kuwait and Dammam flight will be on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. The flight IX-495 will leave Kochi at 8.15 am, and land in Kuwait at 10.55 am. The flight will depart Kuwait at 11.55 am and reach Dammam at 1 pm/2 pm and reach Kochi at 9.05 pm. The Kochi-Kuwait flight via Kozhikode will continue to operate. 

With this, Kochi will have connectivity to Kuwait five day a week. Kochi-Doha-Kochi has been made daily from four weekly flights. The flights will leave Kochi 11.30 p. m. to land at 1.15 a.m. at Doha.

Mr Sundar said that AIE was poised to make a hat-trick of profit this year. The budgeted profit is Rs 208 crore, but the actual profit is expected to be in the range of Rs 250 crore, lower than last financial year’s Rs 297 crore, largely because of 7 to 10 percent hike in fuel price and slack in demand, especially in the economy class. 

He said that the airline cargo service has also performed well with revenue set to soar to '65 crore during 2017-18. At present, around 90% of Air India Express flights are to the Gulf countries.