Everything: Indian

Sunday, 10 July 2011

Turkish Airlines' new strategy to Indian routes

Turkish Airlines' new strategy to Indian routes

Vinay Kumar

To deploy brand new Airbus

A-330-300 aircraft

Introduces special discounted fares

for students

NEW DELHI: Come July and Turkish Airlines, flying daily to Istanbul from Delhi and Mumbai, is all set to deploy brand new Airbus A-330-300 wide bodied aircraft, offering more facilities and greater comfort to the travellers.

Senior Turkish Airlines officials here told this correspondent that the new A-330-300, being pressed into service from July 1 on Mumbai-Istanbul and Delhi-Istanbul routes, would have two class configurations, offering 28 full flat beds in the new business class and 261 seats in the economy class.

Adopting aggressive marketing strategies, Turkish Airlines which began operations in India about eight years ago, has also taken upon itself the responsibility of sales and marketing on the lines of its business models in Indonesia, Hong Kong and Thailand. Turkish Airlines has, on an average, registered 75 per cent occupancy rate in 2010 on its flights to and from India and has ferried three lakh passengers since it began its operations here.

Apart from launching the Turkish Corporate Club which offers additional benefits to business class passengers, the airline has introduced special discounted fares for students for their destinations in Europe and U.S. In an overhaul of its India-strategy, the carrier has tied up with PVR cinemas for promotion among young travellers offering two free tickets to different destinations every month.

New destinations

Over the past month, the carrier, a Star Alliance member, has launched 11 new destinations to Spain, France, Italy, Geneva, Germany, taking total number of its global destinations to 180.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business

View the original article here

Show proof of Indian role: Pakistani panel

Show proof of Indian role: Pakistani panel

Anita Joshua

ISLAMABAD: Balochistan is fast sliding into chaos and the situation is very precarious with the tortured bodies of 140 missing persons turning up between July 2010 and May 2011, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP). As per HRCP's conservative estimate, another 143 persons are still missing in Pakistan's largest province.

Briefing journalists here about the findings of an HRCP team which visited the violence-prone province in May, Secretary-General I.A. Rehman likened the situation in Balochistan to what prevailed in East Pakistan before 1971. He and the former HRCP chairperson, Asma Jehangir, were one in stating that security forces were trying to create the very same narrative of external forces being responsible for the violence in the resource-rich but under-developed province.

“Are you trying to suggest that all Balochis have sold out to foreign elements? Has the government tried even one person for treason,” asked Ms. Jehangir. To a question on the oft-repeated charge that Indians were stirring up trouble, she shot back: “When the government makes such an allegation, we expect it to show some evidence. Unfortunately, we have not seen that. If these allegations are correct, it is all the more serious that the government is not taking up the matter.”

Referring to the mainstream narrative of Balochis conducting a separatist movement, Mr. Rehman noted: “Considering what is being done to them, they are still showing a lot of patience.” A particularly worrying trend the HRCP had noted since 2009, when it last conducted a fact-finding tour of the province, was the torture and murder of victims of “enforced disappearances”. Most of the victims were in the 16-25 age bracket and were either students or unemployed youth.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

International

View the original article here