flydubai, a Dubai-based carrier has witnessed a load factor of 90 per cent from the India market. Currently, the carrier flies 13 weekly flights from India across eight cities. The airline is also in talks at the Government level to increase the capacity from India market, as they have exhausted their bilateral. Recently, flydubai also announced its latest onboard services including; WiFi connectivity, live television streaming and a new seatback in-flight entertainment interface to enhance the overall experience.
Speaking about the India market, Sudhir Sreedharan, Senior Vice President-Commercial Operations (Indian Sub-continent/ GCC/ Africa), flydubai said, “India is an extremely important market for us. It has a lot of potential as we have seen an excellent load factor of around 90 per cent. As of now we only have 13 flights per week from India which is spread across eight cities. In India market the only problem is we are constrained of seats. We have exhausted all our seats. As of now we are in talks with the authority for more capacity, soon this bottleneck will be resolved.”
“By design we are meant to go to the underserved markets. Today we operate to 89 destinations across 43 countries. Out of those 89 destinations, 59 were previously underserved. Indians are now exploring more of these unexplored destinations. But as of now this has not been capitalised as we don’t have enough capacity from India,” he added.
The airline is also focusing to promote its Business Class facility. As a pricing points the carrier falls between a LCC and a full service carrier. Speaking about the Business Class Sreedharan said, “We fly to maximum underserved markets. When you operate in such a diverse network, people want to experience something more; this is where Business Class adds value. In the already served markets flydubai ensures that we add capacity and frequency. So again for that audience who wants frequency and premium products we are adding value for them. Our business class has got an excellent response from India. With the new WiFi connectivity and the live television streaming product the customer can find more value.”
Speaking about the tremendous potential of India Sreedharan said that from India any number of seats is not enough and we are ready to serve any airport in India. If we have more flights from India, it can do very well in Europe, East Africa and CIS countries. As of now India is still underutilised.
This year flydubai is planning to increase its fleet size to 57 with an addition of eight more aircrafts.
