Air India will fly athletes, officials

National carrier Air India is now the official carrier of the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi. HT Correspondent reports.

National carrier Air India is now the official carrier of the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi.

HT Image

On Tuesday, it signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Commonwealth Games Organising Committee. The Games will be held between October 3 and 14, 2010.

Air India will ferry all Games officials and athletes in special chartered flights instead of its scheduled commercial flights. The airlines will also plan holiday packages for officials and athletes visiting the capital.

“Air India has become the first company to be associated with the Commonwealth Games, and we will put our best foot forward as an official carrier,” said Air India chairman and managing director Arvind Jadhav.

Air India Holidays, which is part of the airline, willorganise packages for the officials and athletes and offer other value added services.

“We willtake care of everything from travel, transfers, accommodation and sight seeing,” said Air India spokesman Jitender Bhargava.

Jadhav said the airline carrier would consider re-routing and upgrading of their aircrafts to match the capacity and requirement depending on the size of foreign delegations.

“Air India will also consider deploying the Air India

charter services rather than commercial flights to accommodate large contingents from certain countries or regions,” he said.

The airlines will also be allowed to brand its aircraft with Delhi 2010 logos and images and would be entitled to leverage the rights and benefits as permissible under the Commonwealth Games Federation protocol.