Air India Express, a subsidiary of India’s flag carrier airline Air India, began operating direct flights between Mangaluru International Airport and the Saudi port city of Jeddah on Wednesday, April 3.
The majority of passengers on the initial flight to Jeddah were pilgrims travelling for Umrah.
According to a press release from Mangaluru International Airport (MIA), businessman Shabih Ahmed Kazi, who was among the first customers to book a flight, expressed gratitude to the airline and the airport and expressed the hope that the number of flights between the two places would increase.
According to another traveller, Nirmala Cardoza, the direct trip to Jeddah represents the culmination of a 29-year journey, the press release stated.
Jeddah is MIA’s eighth international destination. The first flight, IX 797, which connected Mangaluru to Jeddah, started as flight IX 1499 from Tiruchirappalli, opening up a new domestic route for Mangaluru.
For the first flight, the airport’s departure hall was decked out in celebration. Chief Airport Officer Mukesh Nankani, together with the heads of the main departments involved, such as Immigration, Customs, the Airport Security Group of the CISF, and the airport’s House of Directors, lit the customary lamp.
Nankani later joined the young passengers and Kazi in the cutting ceremony. He then gave out the boarding pass to the first passenger.
Upon boarding the inaugural flight, passengers were given a certificate, a rose, and a bag of mixed dry fruits by the airport.
On arrival from Tiruchirappalli, it extended a customary greeting to aircraft IX 1499, which was piloted by Captain Anmol Deep Sin Padda.
Later, with a fresh crew, Captain Padda piloted the first trip to Jeddah.
Every Wednesday, an aircraft will depart Tiruchirappalli via Mangaluru and return to Jeddah on Thursday. The second-largest international airline out of Mangaluru, Air India Express claimed in its release that it operates 47 flights each week to a variety of local and foreign locations, including Bengaluru, Tiruchirappalli, Jeddah, Abu Dhabi, Dammam, Bahrain, Doha, Kuwait, Dubai, and Muscat.
According to the Economic Times, there has been a noticeable expansion in the airline network this summer compared to the previous year, with over 25 percent more domestic flights and over 20 percent more foreign flights.
This adds up to 55 extra domestic flights and 19 more international flights, for a total of 259 domestic and 109 international destinations.
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