SpiceJet launches daily Mumbai-Jeddah (and other flights)

Jet Airways slots airports across India are being redistributed on a temporary basis. Vistara and AirAsia India were the first airlines to add more flights from Mumbai. Both SpiceJet and IndiGo expanded big time from both Mumbai and Delhi Terminal 2.

According to CNBC, around 479 slots of a total 766 slots held by Jet Airways has been distributed on a temporary basis. Till now, flights have been added using only 40% of the redistributed slots.

Airline	Slots Allocated	Notes
SpiceJet	130	68 at Mumbai
IndiGo	127	38 at Delhi
Vistara	110	48 at Mumbai
GoAir	44
AirAsia India	42
Air India	24
Alliance Air	2

In March 2019, India increased the bilateral flying rights between India and Saudi Arabia by 40%. Saudi Arabia has unilaterally allowed Indian carriers to add as many flights as they want to Dammam. IndiGo added a daily flight to both Jeddah and Dammam from Mumbai. The flight will be operated by an A320 from June 5, 2019.

SpiceJet hybrid liveries

SpiceJet has now announced the launch of a daily new flight on the Mumbai – Jeddah route. Currently, SpiceJet operates daily flights to Jeddah from Kozhikode and Hyderabad. The first flight is scheduled for July 5, 2019, a month after IndiGo will start Jeddah flights.

This new flight to Jeddah won’t be a temporary one, unlike all the domestic flights which have been added only on a temporary basis. The schedule for the new flight is,

SG68 BOM1930 – 2215JED 737 D
SG69 JED2330 – 0620(+1 day)BOM 737 D

SpiceJet Mumbai-Jeddah

Fares start at INR 26k roundtrip. The flight will be operated by a 189 seat single class 737-800 and so there won’t be a SpiceBiz cabin for now. SpiceJet does eventually plan to deploy the 2 class erstwhile Jet Airways 737s with SpiceBiz on international routes as well, but a launch date hasn’t been confirmed.

So for passengers, the options on Mumbai – Jeddah route will now be between an Air India 777-300ER or IndiGo A320 or Spicejet 737 or Saudia A330. Which one will you choose? Jet Airways used to operate a daily Mumbai-Jeddah flight, 9W 522/521 with the same timetable.

In addition, SpiceJet has also launched the following flights on a temporary basis from May 20, 2019, to July 31, 2019.

Mumbai – Dehradun

SG6932 BOM1635 – 1830DED 737 D
SG6933 DED1900 – 2150BOM 737 D

Mumbai – Guwahati

SG6480 BOM0530 – 0850GAU 737 D
SG6481 GAU1230 – 1545BOM 737 D

Guwahati – Bagdogra

SG6480 GAU0920 – 1010IXB 737 D
SG6481 IXB1040 – 1200GAU 737 D

This new flight complements the previously launched daily morning flight between Mumbai and Dehradun on a temporary basis.

Well, SpiceJet announced plans to add non-stop flights to Hong Kong, Jeddah, Dubai, Colombo, Dhaka, Riyadh, Bangkok and Kathmandu from Mumbai by May-end for quite some time now. We saw flights to Bangkok being added earlier and now they have added Jeddah. SpiceJet hasn’t announced a launch date for the rest of the international flights. Though this time in the press release, they omitted Dubai, wonder why.

Will you be travelling on one of SpiceJet’s new flights?