Samar Chokshi, Country Manager-India, DNSW
Destination NSW (DNSW), the worldwide tourism promotion arm of New South Wales, a south-eastern Australian state, is in talks with a number of airlines together with Qantas, Air India, Singapore Airlines, Malaysian Airlines, Thai Airways, Scoot, and many others., to encourage them to introduce new direct flights or extra flights between the state capital Sydney and India.
“We are currently in talks with Qantas and the airline may add an additional Bengaluru-Sydney flight by October,” Samar Chokshi, Country Manager-India, DNSW instructed The Hindu. “We are also in conversation with Air India exploring if Bengaluru can be an option for the airline to introduce a direct flight to Sydney,” he added.
Similar talks are being held with Singapore Airlines, Malaysian Airlines. Thai Airways, Scoot and different airlines in order to increase air connectivity between Indian cities and Sydney, he mentioned.
India at present has 11 direct/continuous flights in every week to Sydney, of which Air India operates seven between Delhi and Sydney and Qantas operates 4 between Bengaluru and Sydney.
“Qantas is currently experiencing load factor at a high 90% in the Bengaluru-Sydney route and therefore the airline may add an extra flight in a couple of months to increase frequency of flights,” he added.
According to Chokshi, India is a high-priority, the fastest-growing and fourth-largest marketplace for NSW in phrases of vacationer arrivals. New Zealand, U.S and U.Ok are the primary three markets.
NSW reported leisure vacationer arrivals of 1.40 lakh between March 2022 and February 2023. “If we do everything right, it is likely that India may become the third largest contributor to NSW’s tourism sector displacing the U.K,” Mr. Chokshi added.
Mr. Chokshi mentioned the outlook was extraordinarily constructive with direct air connectivity between India and Sydney getting more and more higher and additionally visa (Australian) processing being simplified.
“The total visa processing, for vacationers, businessmen and college students, is simplified and made on-line with none bodily documentation or biometric. The entire visa software course of takes 45 minutes and this has been a game-changer too so far as vacationer arrivals to NSW are involved,’‘ he additional added.
