The start-up has bold ambitions to set a new industry benchmark for others to follow in India. It will initially launch operations from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport serving a mixture of metros and non-metros markets where there is a clear demand for a full-service carrier.
The confirmation of the A380 deployment follows the recent approval from the New Zealand Minister of Transport to a proposed alliance between Singapore Airlines and Air New Zealand which endorsed the earlier decision from the Competition Commission of Singapore.
The airline says the decision to close flights to these two destinations from the end of September 2014 is due to the “sustained weak performance of both routes”.
The new service will place SilkAir in head-to-head competition with Jetstar Asia Airways which launched its own operations between Singapore and Hangzhou in March 2011.
Jetstar Airways will close its Singapore – Auckland flight from July 21, 2014 because the service is not performing as the carrier would have liked and it believes its capacity could be better deployed on other routes.