India’s Airports and Airlines Update 2008
With the skies opening up, airports in India are literally bursting at the seams. Endless queues, inadequate baggage handling, lounge and toilet facilities have come up for criticism time and again.
The good news is that domestic and international terminals at Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore have gone in for major expansion and modernisation which means more immigration counters and baggage reclaim, more runways, world class lounge and duty free, better shuttle service, passenger services, more parking, Medicare etc. In fact the Hyderabad airport is slated to be among the best airports in the world.
Mumbai will get a second international airport by 2012. Hyderabad and Bangalore airports opened recently while the airports in the capital are in various stages of construction and refurbishment. At the Indira Gandhi International airport in Delhi, work is on at a frenetic pace. It is also planned to take the metro up to the airport. Inconvenience and confusion that you experience just now will soon be a thing of the past!
Airline Update:
• Air Deccan launches flights between Bangalore and Indore, Bangalore and Trichy and also from Kolkatta to Jorhat via Guwahati.
• Jet Airways complete 15 years in May 2008. One of India’s leading domestic private airlines Jet Airways begins operations in the Bhopal-Raipur, Raipur – Hyderabad and Indore- Hyderabad sectors.
• Kingfisher Airlines begins services from Chennai to Trichy and Coimbatore. Also launches flights on the Delhi-Chandigarh-Mumbai sector.
• Air Mauritius launches weekly flights to Bangalore.
• Jet Airways deploys its new Airbus 330-200 on its daily connection from Mumbai to Hong Kong. More international connections from Jet Airways include Delhi to Abu Dhabi and the much-awaited Mumbai to San Francisco via Shanghai.
• Look out for Kingfisher’s International Operations to commence in August 2008
