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JET Airways, gunning for a bigger piece of the lucrative Singapore-India air traffic pie, is wooing passengers with big, new planes featuring glitzy in-flight entertainment systems.
The private Indian carrier appears to be taking aim at Singapore Airlines (SIA), the forerunner in high-end air travel between the two countries.
Jet Airways, which currently operates the single-aisle Boeing 737 aircraft on its routes out of Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai to Singapore, will switch to the bigger Airbus 330 planes by Dec 21, the company said yesterday.
The planes can carry 60 per cent more passengers, said the airline's executive vice-president (commercial) Sudheer Raghavan.
Business class travellers can look forward to lie-flat beds with massage systems. All passengers will have a personal in-flight entertainment system that offers more than 200 music and movie options, he said.
For now, the carrier, which charges about $700 excluding taxes and surcharges for a round-trip Singapore-Delhi ticket, has no plans to increase fares.
The upgrades should put Jet Airways - which has never shied away from admitting that it models itself after SIA - on par with the Singapore carrier, industry observers said.
SIA is prepared for the challenge, spokesman Stephen Forshaw said: 'We are conscious that some airlines seek to emulate our formula. While they do this, we will continue to raise the bar with innovations.'
Jet Airways also plans to launch new flights from Bangalore and Hyderabad to Singapore by June next year, Mr Raghavan told The Straits Times.
Also in the pipeline are plans to fly out of Changi Airport to other cities in Asia and Australia, he said.
'Changi is an extremely strong hub with a massive flow of people in and out. The attractiveness of an airport is also becoming increasingly important when choosing a hub in this respect.'
Mr Tan Lye Teck, deputy director-general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS), said Changi looks forward to expanding its partnership with the Indian carrier. His comments came at an event last night to celebrate the launch of Jet Airways' new Airbus 330 aircraft.
Passenger traffic between Singapore and India reached two million last year, an 'impressive' 20.3 per cent growth over the year before, he said.
Data from the Singapore Tourism Board shows that in the first 10 months of the year, 615,732 Indians visited Singapore - the fourth highest total from any country and a jump of almost 13 per cent over last year.
The growth in air traffic has been fuelled in no small part by strong business links between the two countries, said Mr Predeep Menon, executive director and chief executive officer of the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Total trade is expected to hit $25 billion this year, a 25 per cent jump over last year, he said. More companies with Indian majority owners are also being set up in Singapore, he added.
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