Air India Express starts direct flights to Phuket from Bengaluru

Bengaluru: After IndiGo and Akasa Air, Air India Express Monday launched a direct flight to Phuket in Thailand from Bengaluru.The Phuket connection will be weekend centric – a Boeing 737-8 Max aircraft will fly out of Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) at 10:35am Mondays and Saturdays, reaching Phuket by 3:50pm. On Fridays, the flight will take off at 11.25am and Sundays, 11:15am, with a single-direction journey taking 3 hours and 45 minutes.This is Air India Express’s second destination in Thailand after its daily Bengaluru-Bangkok service, which was introduced in Oct last year.Pune flight cancelledAfter the cancellation of an Air India Express flight to Pune, several passengers had to alter their travel plans Monday morning.Flight AI 9806, scheduled to take off from Bengaluru at 5.35pm and reach Pune at 7.20pm, was cancelled. However, the schedule became much more complicated as it was also a connecting flight for passengers from across the country flying to Pune.Several passengers said Bengaluru was a transit point in their journey to Pune from their respective stations. A few had already reached their source airports. “Passengers are currently left waiting at the airport with limited information on alternate arrangements and timelines,” Shipra Singh, a passenger travelling between Kochi and Pune, posted on X.The airline later clarified the flight was cancelled due to operational reasons and offered passengers either a refund for the affected sector or a one-time flight change within seven days.