UAE- Air India's Kochi Sharjah route to get new aircraft

(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)Recurring complaints about technical snags on Air India's Sharjah-Kochi flights are likely to end as the airline has replaced the aged aircraft that used to fly on the route for several years.

"Air India has deployed a brand new A320 aircraft on Sharjah-Kochi route effective July 24" Prem Sagar manager of Air India and Air India Express in Dubai and Sharjah told Khaleej Times on Sunday.

Sagar said the new aircraft has a seating capacity of 180 - an increase of 40 seats. "This aircraft will have better schedule reliability" Sagar said.

"We operate three daily flights from Sharjah. The aircraft for Kochi route has already been replaced. We will also replace the aircraft for the Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode routes shortly."

He indicated that the new aircraft would not suffer from the technical glitches that reportedly affected its schedule on different occasions in the past.

The change in the aircraft has been implemented just over a week after a flight on the route landed in Mumbai following a major technical snag. Passengers aboard the flight reportedly went through a few tense moments on July 17 after the flight was diverted to Mumbai with a request for emergency landing.

The initial estimate was that the flight had developed some sort of hydraulic failure. Reports said the Mumbai airport was placed on full alert as preparations were made for an emergency landing.

However the request for an emergency landing was withdrawn later and the pilot managed to land the Airbus A320 aircraft normally.

In February this year 142 passengers who were to fly from Kochi to Sharjah had to be flown in another aircraft after a tyre of the plane they were to fly in burst after reaching Kochi from Delhi.

Sajila Saseendran