By Rohit Vaid
Ho Chi Minh City– After consolidating its presence in West and Southeast Asia, India’s largest passenger carrier IndiGo plans to add more destinations in China next year followed by a likely entry into the Central Asian market.
Moreover, the airline has also not ruled-out the possibility to start a maiden flight service to Cambodia. Neither has it given up on its plans for a direct air connection to the UK.
However, the range limitations on its fleet of A320s and 321s currently restricts the airline to the extremities of Asia, mainly to Istanbul in the west, Hong Kong to the east and Ho Chi Minh City on the Southeast Asian side.
Notwithstanding this, the airline still aspires to eventually operate wide-body jets in the future, IndiGo’s Chief Commercial Officer William Boulter told IANS.
According to Boulter, China remains the focus for the airline as of now.
Speaking to IANS here at an event to usher in the airline’s direct flight service between Kolkata and Ho Chi Minh City, Boulter said: “China holds huge potential. We have launched a direct flight to Guangzhou and envisage another flight service to China by early next year. However, everything depends on the response to our new flights.”
The airline operates to Chengdu and Guangzhou in China.
“Asia is very important to us… We have tremendous potential to start services to new cities that come under the flying range of our A320s and A321s.”
At present, the airline is on a massive international expansion plan. It has already launched 5 flights in the last 5 weeks to Myanmar, China, Vietnam and Kuwait.
Currently, it flies to 60 domestic and 23 international routes.
On Friday, the passenger carrier commenced direct daily operations between Kolkata and Ho Chi Minh City, the commercial capital of Vietnam.
The new daily service comes days after the airline operated its maiden flight to the Southeast Asian country’s administrative capital Hanoi from Kolkata.
Overall, Indigo operates almost 1,500 daily flights with a fleet of over 240 aircraft. (IANS)
