India’s national carrier Air India will soon increase the frequency of its direct flights to Australia.
The Times of India reports soon-to-be-privatised airline is planning to increase the services of its non-stop flights to San Francisco and Australia.
Delhi to Australia nonstop may go up to 10 flights weekly from the current 7 scheduled flights, the report states.
Air India currently runs four flights a week on Delhi-Sydney route and three flights on Delhi-Melbourne route.
The airline is now planning to make it five flights a week to Sydney and as many to Melbourne.
According to the report, the officials said being the only direct flight between India and Australia, there is significant demand for these flights.
Tony Huber, Australia’s consul general in Mumbai, on Saturday tweeted: “Australia receives more visitors from India than from Hong Kong, Indonesia & New Zealand. Those three countries have 666 flights to Australia between them per week — India has 7. A reminder of how much economic & tourism potential can be unlocked between” the two countries.
Tourism Australia chief executive John O'Sullivan said India was now classified as a "full-build market" with a target to grow it to half a millions tourists a year by 2025.
"We really expect it to take off from there in the long term," Mr O'Sullivan said in an interview with AFR in August last year.
In 2017, Tourism Australia appointed Bollywood actress Parineeti Chopra as the first Indian woman ambassador to be a part of their ‘Friend of Australia’ (FOA) panel.
Source: Instagram/parineetichopra
The Friend of Australia recognition was presented to Parineeti by Mr Huber, for her contribution to promote Australia.
Parineeti Chopra joined fellow Indian Friends of Australia – Chef Sanjeev Kapoor and renowned Cricket Commentator Harsha Bhogle, who have been great advocates for Australia, encouraging Indians to visit Australia.
