Effective January 23rd 2007 Jet Airways will launch services to Bangkok from Delhi and Kolkata as per the following schedule :
9w 063 DEL-BKK 0045 0635
9w 064 BKK-DEL 1805 2105
9w 065 BKK-CCU 0920 1020
9w 066 CCU-BKK 1155 1615
Frequency of all flights are daily and aircraft is a B73H.
So at last we will see Jet landing in Thailand.The timings are excellent specially the Kolkata services.Looking forward to flying on one of them soon.
Jet should do very well on these routes.Kolkata's NSCBI airport will thus see its first international flight by a Indian private carrier.S2 keeps on talking about launching its flight from CCU-DAC but it never materialises.With TG going full on almost every flight and IC's governement office type daily service,Jet will be a welcome option to BKK from CCU.Other news just coming in is that TG will go daily BKK-CCU from summer '07 and has asked the Indian authorities to permit it to fly double daily on this route as an exception to the bilaterals.
Thats something even i am wondering. With BOM as their base. I expected BOM-BKK or maybe just CCU-BKK with onward connections to other metros. With domestic market getting too crowded i guess going international is a much safer bet for 9w/ s2 as atleast they wont get any competetion from other players till 2008 atleast.
Lack of aircraft i suspect (given that Mum-Bkk must be a 4:40-4:50 run each way). Also Mum-Bkk 9W will face competition not just from TG, AI (1 stop via Del) and IC, but also CX and newly launched Eva Air if i am not wrong.
Plus i am sure 9W will want to consolidate their Bkk operations with these 2 flights.
Any news on whether 9W is converting one of their existing 737-800s to the international configuration or whether this will be one of the new aircraft ?
its not only aircraft lying at BOM there must be more reasons... maybe 9W wants to start up with 737s from these routes and over time when it breakevens and does quite well on this route it might deploy a wide body on BOM-BKK-BOM route
There has to be a reason... board members at 9W are not kids
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Thats what na Avijeet: Sinc eyou have a spare 737 overnighting at BOM, u can start up the BOM-BKK sector with the smaller 737 and then depending on traffic transfer it to the A330.
a) Even if the aircraft is parked between 8 PM and 6 AM, it cant do a rotation to Bkk.
Even if it leaves Bom at 21:00, with a flying time of apprx 4:40, it will reach at 3:10 AM (Local time, +1:30 from IST), assuming a turn around in 1 hour, leave Bkk at the truly horrid hour of 4:10 AM and reach Bom at 7:20 AM...too late to catch the early morning round...and with some truly horrendous timings which no business traveller would like...
b) 9W is very proud of its international service running a clearly superior business class product (comparable with what SQ and the like fly..without the AVOD though) in its international flights..for instance, J class on the 737-800Winglets which fly on the international sectors have only 16 seats with 54 inch leg room (Its amazing...having flown it twice..its real luxury). In economy, they have IFE on the international sectors. I am certain they would not want to compromise that by flying an old 737-400 aircraft.
Ideally therefore..they would like to let the new routes settle and start making money on Del Bkk and Ccu-Bkk...I am sure by July of 2007, they will look at starting up Bom-Bkk with a dedicated aircraft..and possibly loop in another city like Blr or Maa in rotation (like they have done Del and CCu with the same aircraft)