During Presidents Nasheed’s recent visit to India, India and Maldives had agreed in co-operation in Airlines service. Today I read a news stating that Kingfisher Airlines will be starting its service to Maldives.

Its really tough to get a ticket during peek seasons from Indian Airlines. This could give a relief to the travelers, especially the expatriates working in Maldives. Kingfisher is the leading Private Airlines in India.

Maldivian, the national carrier, division of Island Aviation will be operating flights to Colombo from Male’ from the 6th of November. They will be using the Dash 8 aircraft for this service. Maldivian also has services to Trivandrum everyday.

All the departures from Male’ will be at 1800 Male’ local time and departures from Colombo at 2115 Sri Lankan local time everyday with the exception of Wednesday and Fridays. The first International service by Maldivian was started on the 25th January 2008 which was to Trivandrum.

I have never travelled by Maldivian, it takes about 90 minutes to Trivandrum. Indian Airlines is the other service operator to India. Maldivian has its office in Trivandrum, Sasthamangalam and Indian Airlines Office is near the Mascot Hotel

Today Vijay Malaya of Kingfisher Airlines and Naresh Goel of Jet Airlines has announced that they are going to work together and this will really help the end users and both the companies to sustain.

Unofficial sources say that they are losing about 10 crores rupees every day. According the agreement they will not compete with each other in the domestic sector. Kingfisher and Jet together has the 50% share of the Indian Domestic Airlines operations.

Its good for the service providers when they work together rather than going for cut throat competitions. Due to recent hike in fuel prices, most of airline companies are facing heavy lose in revenue. Hopefully this will help the companies to sustain and provide a better service to the end uses and the private airlines in India grow.

There are many private airlines in India now. I very often use this service and its very useful when you have less time and need to move around different cities. I have traveled with most of the popular airlines in India and almost every service provider try to provide their best. Last time when I was in India, I had to travel to 6 different cities in 6 days. All my appointments and meeting went very well. Its now very easy to travel to a different city in India. You just need to login to their website or any ticketing website and give the information about your travel and it will give you all the options available, just select your flights and make the payment. You get your e-ticket emailed, just print it and travel.

One of the problem that I faced was these websites only accepts credit cards issued from Indian banks. I am an NRI and I did not have an Indian credit card, so I had to use my friends card. It would be good if they accepted any credit card and I could not understand the reason for this.

Major private airlines in India

1. Air India
2. Indian Airlines
3. Jet Airways
4. Air Sahara
5. Kingfisher Airlines
6. Air Deccan
7. GoAir
8. SpiceJet
9. IndiGo
10. Jagson Airline
11. Paramount Airways

There are many websites where you can book tickets for all these airlines. I would suggest to go these websites rather than going to individual airlines. When you use website like Makemytrip.com.

Some of the websites where you can buy tickets online

• AirticketsIndia
• Makemytrip
• Cheep Airtickets India
• Global Travels
• Travel Guru
• Indiatimes
• Ticket To India
• Yathra
• Journey Mart
• India Cheep Fare

The rates for these domestic airlines always varies. If you plan your travel earlier and buy your ticket, you can get a better deal. Getting tickets usually are not difficult. While I was traveling from Hyderabad, I could see many flights waiting in queue to take off. This is a real boon for business community in India and India has become so small.