Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, along with Union Textiles Minister Dayanidhi Maran, flagged off the first flight with 189 passengers from the swanky new terminal 3 (T3) of the IGI airport at 07.30 AM.
SpiceJet completed five years of successful domestic operations earlier this year and has become the first Indian budget airline to start international operations. Terming it an important milestone not just in success story of SpiceJet but also that of low cost carrier segment in India," Director and CEO of SpiceJet Kishore Gupta said, "with every new destination, we are moving closer to realising our vision of replicating the success of the internationally successful LCC model in India."
The Delhi-Kathmandu flights would be followed by another international flight on Chennai-Colombo sector on October 9. "The two countries have a lot in common. By connecting Kathmandu with India, we will play an important role in promoting trade and tourism between the two countries," SpiceJet COO Samyukt Sridharan said.
SpiceJet flight (SG-041) would take-off for Kathmandu everyday, except Tuesday, from Delhi at 7.30 AM and reach the Nepal capital at 9.05 AM. On the return leg, the flight (SG-042) would leave Kathmandu at 9.55 AM and reach Delhi at 11.20 AM everyday, except Tuesday, the airlines said in a statement.
SpiceJet has over 13 per cent market share and operates 147 flights daily to 20 cities in India namely Agartala, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bagdogra, Chennai, Coimbatore, Delhi, Guwahati, Goa, Hyderabad, Jammu, Jaipur, Kochi, Kolkata, Madurai, Mumbai, Pune, Srinagar, Varanasi and Visakhapatnam.