Vistara Launches Mumbai – Dubai – Mumbai Service
I refer to my earlier post – Emirates and the India Problem. It was a challenging article to write and is one of my most original works. If you want to skip it, here is a brief summary.
India and UAE have a bilateral arrangement that puts a cap of the maximum seats airlines can fly. This restriction applies to airlines from UAE (Emirates, Etihad, flydubai, Air Arabia) and from India (Indigo, Air India, SpiceJet, GoAir, Vistara and Jet Airways). The cap has been exhausted for UAE airlines and they cannot add new capacity. Negotiations are underway to increase this cap. However, with the demise of Jet Airways, Indian airlines are free to add capacity on this route.
Vistara follows Indigo, SpiceJet, Air India and GoAir to add service to UAE
Since Jet Airways ceased operations in April, this is what has happened
- Air India increased service on Mumbai-Dubai-Mumbai and Delhi-Dubai-Delhi route by introducing its Dreamliner
- Air India introduced Kolkata-Dubai-Kolkata and Indore-Dubai-Indore flights
- SpiceJet adds a second daily service on Mumbai-Dubai-Mumbai
- GoAir announces Kannur-Dubai-Kannur
- Both GoAir and Indigo announce Mumbai-Abu Dhabi-Mumbai and Delhi-Abu Dhabi-Delhi routes
- Indigo increases service on Mumbai-Dubai-Mumbai route
As you can see, that is a lot of new flights in just over three months. And now we have another new entrant – Vistara.
Vistara – Dubai Flight Details
Vistara is a Joint Venture between the Tatas (one of the largest business conglomerates in India) and Singapore Airlines. I have flown Vistara a few times before. It is a cross between Jet Airways (of a decade ago) and Singapore Airlines.
Vistara became eligible to fly internationally only recently as per Indian regulations. Dubai is the second international destination announced by Vistara after Singapore (which was an obvious first given SQ heritage). The service is scheduled to start from August 21, 2019 and will be a daily flight. The timings are
Why a separate post on this? First, because I travel on this route a lot. Read my reviews of Jet Airways and Air India flights. Second, Vistara is offering a 3-class configuration – Economy, Premium Economy and Business. Till Emirates launches Premium Economy (expected in 2020), Dubai is woefully short of this option.
The fares seem competitive as well, priced a bit lower than Emirates and higher the low cost carriers.
Vistara has its own loyalty program – Club Vistara (CV). The latest redemption chart is available here. It does not look too appealing though. One-way travel from Mumbai to Dubai (or vice versa) will cost 20,000 CV points in Economy, 30,000 in Premium Economy and 60,000 in Business.
You can also get the points credited to KrisFlyer. In the same vein, you can also use KrisFlyer points to redeem on Vistara. The redemption chart is not updated on SQ website for Dubai or Singapore.
I cannot wait to try Premium Economy on this segment.
