RIYADH, 15 August 2003 — The national carrier of India, Air-India, has increased its flight frequency from 22 to 30 flights a week on the Saudi Arabia-India sector with plans to add more flights to new Indian destinations later this year. This was disclosed by Capt. P.P. Singh, Air-India’s regional director for the Gulf and the Middle East, while speaking to Arab News from Dubai on the occasion of India’s Independence Day.

Singh said that the Jeddah-India sector has expanded a lot in terms of flight frequency and also in terms of passenger loads with 13 flights being operated from Jeddah to Indian destinations on a weekly basis. “Air-India is operating two flights every week also to the northern city of Lucknow, which is yet another achievement on the part of the national carrier,” said the Air-India regional director.

The capital city of Riyadh, he said, has also been directly connected with Trivandrum, Cochin, Calicut and Hyderabad. “A new flight to Madras is likely to be introduced on the Riyadh-Madras sector tentatively by October this year,” said Singh, adding that Air-India has taken extensive security measures to ensure protection of passengers and to prevent any ugly incident.

Referring to Haj operations, Singh said Air-India is making arrangements to ensure that A-I will deploy its own aircrafts for the transportation of pilgrims this year again. “There is no plan to lease aircrafts from outside India for transporting Haj pilgrims,” said Singh, adding that nearly 100,000 pilgrims will be transported this year again by Air-India. Last year, three new stations were added as uplift points for Indian pilgrims including Lucknow, Calicut and Srinagar.

A new remote check-in service has been introduced in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Calcutta, Calicut, Lucknow and Hyderabad so that the Haj pilgrims are able to walk through the terminal building to the aircraft with just their hand baggage after being transported to the airport.

Air-India also reintroduced last year first class service on its flights along with the existing executive and economy class, while operating state of the art 747-400 aircraft out of the Saudi capital city of Riyadh. Singh said that “it has been our objective to serve the Indian community in Saudi Arabia”. Air-India, he said, has emerged to be a major carrier on the global level. It has recorded a net profit of 150 million rupees in the financial year ending March 31, 2002 compared to a net loss of 440 million rupees a year before. Air-India carried 3.13 million passengers during the same year with a passenger load of 66.6 percent, said the regional director.

Referring to the flight frequencies from the western city of Jeddah, Singh said that “it is an important station for India’s national carrier not only because of the large Indian community, but also because of the massive Haj operations Air-India undertakes every year”. Singh said that nearly 100,000 pilgrims are flown to Saudi Arabia every year. He said “we are proud of the faultless Haj operations conducted this year and we look forward to offer an even better services during the forthcoming Haj”.

“Thanks to the host country Saudi Arabia, which also extends all possible cooperation to Air-India to serve Indian pilgrims in an exceptional manner,” he remarked. Air-India, he said, has also been playing an active role in promoting social and cultural events in Saudi Arabia. He said that the national carrier has always extended a helping hand to Indian social and cultural organizations in holding community events like poetry sessions (Mushaira), charity fairs and sponsoring scholastic awards to topper students at different Indian schools across the Kingdom.

This is in addition to facilitating the trips of eminent Indian personalities to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, who visit the countries of the Gulf region every now and then for attending social and cultural events organized by expatriate Indians and the host government. At times of need, Air-India has joined hands to help relief and rehabilitation projects and has risen to the occasion by carrying relief goods to many cities in India.