Air Astana gears up India initiatives
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Air Astana has strategic plans for the India market.
The airline plans to increase services in a bid to augment tourist numbers. Talking to Travel Daily Middle East, Janar Jailauova, Regional General Manager Gulf and Indian Subcontinent for Air Astana explains the developments which include an increase of the Delhi service to a daily. “We are keenly evaluating the more destinations in India such as Mumbai and Goa. The demand from Goa to Kazakhstan exists and we want to build this traffic. Our objective is to develop the tourism potential of the destination targeting both the leisure and MICE groups,” she added.
Kazakhstan works well for the Indian market as travellers can explore the destination for its ski offerings in summer. Distance, connectivity and tourist offerings – all three factors are inter-connected. “Discussions are currently on with Air India to explore the opportunities for code-shares as well as other Indian carriers for interline agreements,” added Jailauova.
On the tourism front, the airline promotes the destination through its current GSAs. “The idea is to promote Kazakhstan as a short weekend stay destination for Indian travellers. The main cities of focus for this are Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Trivandrum, Goa and Kochi,” concluded Jailauova.