RIYADH, 15 August 2005 — Indian Airlines has announced 40 percent discounts on tickets purchased by passengers traveling from Saudi Arabia and choosing IA flights to shuttle around domestic destinations inside India. “This offer, welcomed by all passengers irrespective of their nationality, will be valid until Sept. 30 this year,” said Prince Naser F. Al-Faisal Al-Saud, chairman and chief executive officer of NABA Tourism and Transport Ltd, here. NABA is the general service agent (GSA) of Indian Airlines in the Kingdom.

Prince Naser, in a statement released to Arab News on the occasion of India’s Independence Day, gave an overview of the Indian Airlines’ operation in the Gulf with special reference to the attractive fares announced by the airline for Gulf passengers recently. Indian Airlines offers many tailor-made reduced fares and saving schemes for its customers like “Smart Super Save 4 Coupons Scheme,” which costs only $380 and taxes with a validity period of 180 days.

Other IA fare schemes include “Super Saver Golden Edge 8 Coupons” for $760 and taxes with 270 days validity, “Discover India Fares” for $630 for 15 days, “Discover India Fares” for $895 with 21 days validity, “Discover India Seven Days Pass” for $400 with a week-long validity and “Wonder India Fares” for $320 with one week validity. These are in addition to other similar saving schemes like senior citizen fare, group fare and special fares to South East Asia with add-on sectors.

Referring to the operation of IA from the Gulf, Mohammed Qaiser, sales and marketing manager of the airline, said that the airline has its offices around the Kingdom. Those willing to travel on India’s domestic sectors can make reservation and purchase their tickets from any part of Saudi Arabia, he said. He pointed out that IA was established with an aim to air-link the vast South Asian subcontinent by a single airline way back in 1953.

Presently, Indian Airlines, is one of the largest regional airline systems in Asia with a fleet of 62 aircraft (4 wide bodied Airbus A300s, 41 fly-by-wire Airbus A320s, 11 Boeing 737s, 2 Dornier D-228 aircraft and 4 ATR-42).

The IA is also moving closer to acquiring 43 new Airbus aircraft with the India’s Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) expected to decide whether the proposal needs to be cleared by a Group or Ministers (GoM) or a Committee of Secretaries (CoS) at its meeting scheduled for Thursday. Earlier, the Indian Minister for Civil Aviation Praful Patel had written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, requesting that a GoM/CoS be set up to study the fleet acquisition proposal.

Referring to the NABA-IA tie up, Qaiser said: “NABA is proud to complete 10 years, while working as GSA for Indian Airlines in the Kingdom”. “Now, we are seriously studying the possibility of operating IA flights to/from Saudi Arabia, since we believe that it is high time to introduce it,” he said. He also pointed out that IA had introduced air-conditioned coach plying every 20 minutes between Sahar International Airport and Santa Cruz Domestic Airport in Bombay for the convenience of passengers traveling from Saudi Arabia.

The airline, he said, also had separate IA counters with a supervisor to meet passengers and board them in the coach in a separate meet-greet set-up. “IA is also the first to be credited with the introduction of wide-bodied A300 aircraft on the domestic network, the fly-by-wire A320, domestic shuttle service, walk-in flights and flexi-fares,” said the airline manager, adding that the airlines network is also expanding very fast. Its current network spans from Kuwait in the west to Singapore in the East and covers a number of destinations in India and abroad.

“The plans are also in the pipeline to launch flights to several new destinations in near future,” said Qaiser. The Indian Airlines international network, he said, covered Kuwait, Oman, the UAE, Qatar and Bahrain in West Asia, Thailand, Singapore, Yangon and Malaysia in South East Asia and Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Maldives in the South Asian sub-continent. Soon, it is also going to be paperless travel with Indian Airlines.

The airline at its corporate office in India recently signed a Letter of Intent (LoI) with a European company for e-ticketing on its entire network, covering 57 destinations within the country and 20 abroad.