Sharjah: Air India Express has announced 40 additional flights between Sharjah and India to facilitate expatriates flying to Kerala for Eid and their festival of Onam and those returning to the UAE after holidays there.
The additional flights, which have a seating capacity of 186 passengers each, will be operated from August 22 to the Thiruvonam Day on September 4, the low-cost arm of India’s national carrier Air India has confirmed.
These flights will operate from Thiruvananthapuram, Kochi and Kozhikode in Kerala as well as New Delhi.
“We have a huge client base in Kerala. The additional flights will mainly cater to the Malayalees flying home for Eid and Onam festival and expats holidaying there coming back to the UAE before schools reopen here,” an official told Gulf News on Wednesday.
Of the 40 flights to Sharjah and back, 36 will be from the airports in the South Indian state which celebrates 10-day Onam festival from August 25. As many as 16 flights will be from Thiruvananthapuram, 14 from Kozhikode and six from Kochi.
There are an estimated one million Keralites living in the UAE. The budget airline operates over 150 flights to various destinations in India from the UAE every week. Majority of them are to the Kerala sector, where the airline’s headquarters in India is also based.
