Air India Cuts Costs by Shutting Down Some Offices

Tuesday, 28th April 2015 at 13:59pm

As costs keep piling up for Air India, the largest Indian budget carrier has decided to trim some of its local and foreign offices. As of today, the carrier has suspended 23 booking offices across the country as well as several abroad.

In a written reply, Minster of State for Civil Aviation Mahesh Sharma said the decision to close several booking offices was made in order to reduce spending and control costs.

Air India has shut down booking offices in Agra, Allahabad, Amristar, Darjeeling, Dehradun, Leh, Kanpur, Mysore, Surat, Trichur and Udaipur.

According to Sharma, these booking offices were shut down because the number of people who booked a ticket through them was insignificant. Most passengers were buying tickets either through Air India website or via travel agencies.

Currently, Air India operates 54 booking offices in the country, not including the 23 that were just shut down.

Air India Closing International Offices as well

In a separate announcement, Civil Aviation Minster Ashok Gajapathi Raju has revealed that Air India has also closed or downscaled several of its booking offices outside of India.

He said:

"The booking offices at offline stations at Zurich Chittagong and Vienna have been shut down in FY 2013-14 with a view to cut down cost. So as to maximize revenue and promote code share flights, there is now only a small sales or representative set up at the airport at Zurich and the sales representative office at Vienna is operating from a small office space in a business center."

The minister also said that Air India will keep its Washington, Los Angeles and Amsterdam booking offices, even though the carrier does not have any services to these cities. These offices will remain in order to:

"Tap and cater to the Indian ethnic population, business travelers, tourists and also other segments having affinity between India and the respective countries."

Offices at Tehran and Cairo will also be closed.

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