Kuwait Airways gears for heavy traffic to Kerala By Sanu George, Indo-Asian News Service
Thiruvananthapuram, June 9 (IANS) Kuwait Airways anticipates heavy traffic from the Gulf to Kerala between mid-June and end-July and a reverse flow in August and September. "All our flights are getting fully booked during the coming months and it would be ideal if the Indian government adopts an open sky policy during the coming peak season to allow us to operate more flights," Oommen Mathew, who heads Kuwait Airways operations in Kerala, told IANS. Kuwait Airways operates every day from Kerala and has four flights from Thiruvananthapuram and three from Kochi. It offers 24 seats in business class and 174 in economy every day. Against this, Air-India operates just three flights a week to Kuwait - two from Kochi and one from here. "We are prepared to operate every day from the two airports but since we have a bilateral agreement with Air-India, we alone cannot do anything in this regard," added Mathew. The peak season for all Middle East airlines is June to September when schools in the Gulf close for summer. Another factor this year is that several people who had flown in here when the Iraq war broke out now want to return. Mathew said the load factor that had dropped to four percent on flights to Kuwait and onward destinations during the Iraq war had returned to normal by May 15. It was currently at 88 percent and would rise to 100 percent in the coming weeks. --Indo-Asian News Service ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
