Air-India Express may skip Doha in winter routes

DUBAI: Air India's budget airline Air-India Express may skip Doha in its winter routes, a Qatar newspaper said.

According to The Peninsula, the airline was reconfiguring some of its Boeing 737 aircraft for more lucrative routes and Doha may not fall in Air-India Express' winter routes this year.

There are over 130,000 Indians in Qatar, many of whom work on contracts and look for low-fare tickets for their trips to India.

The newspaper quoted Air India chief V. Thulasidas as saying that Air-India Express would not fly from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to Mumbai and New Delhi as the demand for premium class seats on these sectors was very high.

He explained that the reconfiguration of the aircraft into two classes for operations on lucrative routes would result in a shortage of aircraft configured for economy class operations used by Air-India Express, forcing the budget carrier to defer operations to certain destinations.

He added that Air-India Express would serve several new routes in India such as Amritsar, Mangalore and Trichy. GCC countries comprise Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.