By IANS
Mumbai : After selecting Brussels as its hub for Europe and US east coast cities, Jet Airways is now planning to choose Shanghai as the hub for its destinations to US’ west coast, said a top company official.
“We are finalising our route network to San Francisco and Los Angeles with Shanghai as hub. It is much shorter and cost effective to fly from China to the US west coast than from Singapore,” said Saroj K. Dutta, executive director of Jet Airways.
According to industry sources, a hub in Shanghai will have a much better yield on the routes. Jet Airways officials have already said that the San Francisco flight via Shanghai would take six hours less compared with the conventional routes. It will take 19 hours, including the stopover, as compared with the existing 25 hours.
“Through this route, Jet will definitely have higher gains. Apart from Mumbai-Shanghai, Jet will be able to tap the growing Shanghai-San Francisco traffic as well,” said Kapil Kaul, CEO, Indian subcontinent and Middle East, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA).
Like most other carriers in India, Jet Airways is passing through a financial crunch, partly attributed to the huge discounts on air tickets and the hike in aviation turbine fuel prices.
The airline launched its international operations mid-2007 to London, New York and Toronto, Singapore, the Gulf and other places where it faces stiff competition. It, therefore, has to look at ways to pare its costs.
On the other hand, state-owned Air India has indicated that it will fly to the US west coast using the polar route. At present, Air India flies Mumbai-Los Angeles via Frankfurt.