Indian airline planning flight to Bangalore

Indian, which currently operates daily services from Doha to Kozhikode and Kochi, is looking at connecting Bangalore, the capital of India's southern state of Karnataka.

"We are also thinking of adding capacity to Kozhikode," said Abhay Pathak, the Dubai-based regional manager of the India's state-owned airline, during a visit to Qatar. Pathak took charge as the head of the Gulf region in April.

To add capacity, we are looking at various options, he said, adding, options included making Doha and Bahrain independent of each other at least on three days of the week.

Currently, Doha shares the daily service with Bahrain, which means each station gets 60 to 65 seats.

May be, some of the Kozhikode flights might be extended to Bangalore, instead of going to Kochi, he said.

Similarly, there was a good potential for Bangalore. The airline has already ordered 45 new aircraft. Last week, it received the first delivery and every 25 days a new aircraft would arrive, he said.

Talking about the proposed merger of Indian and Air-India, Pathak said it could take two years for total integration. The process, however, is to start on July 15.