AirAsia India (Bengaluru International) will begin operating flights to Sharjah on behalf of Air India Express (IX, Delhi International) on August 28. This follows the carrier beginning to operate some codeshare flights on behalf of Air India (AI, Delhi International) earlier this month.
According to ch-aviation schedules data, from August 28, AirAsia India will deploy one of its A320-200Ns onto a daily Delhi International - Sharjah - Varanasi - Sharjah - Delhi rotation, replacing the B737-800 service operated by Air India Express. It comes ahead of the merger of the two low-cost airlines. Following recent approval from India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation, that merger is now expected to finalise in early 2024. The Sharjah flights also mark AirAsia India's sole foreign foray. Presently, it only flies within India.
As recently reported in ch-aviation, AirAsia India also began operating some domestic codeshare flights for Air India on August 1. AirAsia India is putting the full-service carrier's flight designator on selected flights between Bangalore International and Bhubaneshwar, Mumbai International - Goa Dabolim, Delhi International - Lucknow, and Delhi International and Pune.
The closer co-operation comes as Tata Sons seeks to consolidate its Indian airline interests. In addition to the AirAsia India - Air India Express merger, it also intends to merge Vistara (UK, Delhi International) with Air India, in the process creating one large low-cost carrier and one large full-service carrier.
