New launches - It's raining planes

Tajik Air (tajikair.tj), operating out of Dushanbe, finally renewed flights to Delhi after many false starts on July 6. Earlier postponements were blamed on low passenger volume. Inaugurating the route, Tajik&rsquos Boeing 737 brought thirty-nine passengers to the Indian capital and returned with thirty. The two-and-a-half-hour flight, to operate every Friday, costs &euro 240. (Tajikistan is the site of India&rsquos only overseas air-force base, incidentally.)

All Nippon Airways (ana.co.jp) is queued up behind, to launch its Delhi-Tokyo route on October 29 to commemorate sixty years of Indo-Nipponese ties. ANA has already been flying to Mumbai since 2007, which used to be a business class-only flight but was switched to a two-class one on popular demand. The new daily flights from Delhi are already open to book.

Next in line is our own SpiceJet (spicejet.com), launching for Kabul on the eve of Independence Day. This makes it India&rsquos first private carrier to do so, and extends Spice&rsquos international routes to four countries (it also flies to Kathmandu, Colombo and Dubai). The flights will ply thrice a week.