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Malaysia Airlines Gets Drawn to City
If you were smarting under the decision of Bangladesh Biman and Royal Brunei Airlines to pull out of Kolkata, here is some much needed balm?
Malaysia Airlines will begin operations in Kolkata by January 2005. It will be part of the first phase of its India-wide expansion plans. The state government gave the final nod to the proposal on Monday. "All we need now is a favourable schedule," said Malaysia Airlines sales manager (north India) Henry Moses.
The airlines' network development controller for Europe, Australia, New Zealand and China, Norzalda Md. Din, said, "We have been negotiating with the Airports Authority of India about flight timing. We would like it to be a late night flight while AAI has given us a morning slot. However, we are working out on how it can be changed," Md Din said.
They will be meeting Kolkata airport manager Rajendra Pal on Tuesday. Both Moses and Norzalda Md. Din spoke to state tourism minister Dinesh Dakua on Monday and said the state had tremendous tourism potential - the prime reason for their beginning operations here.
Initially, there would be three flights a week between Kolkata and Kuala Lumpur. They would commence after studying the load factor of Singapore and Thai Airways flights operating on the same route. "Both these flights are doing very well and there is no reason why we should doubt our potential," said Moses.
During the first phase of its expansion, Malaysia Airlines would be looking at commercially viable spots like Kolkata and Ahmedabad followed by Amritsar and Kochi, Md Din said.
Kolkata 7/9/2004
