INDIA: Indian Navy Aircraft Carrier To Become Floating Hotel

The Andhra Pradesh state government plans to turn a historic Indian Navy aircraft carrier into a floating hotel.

Chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu said the Indian defence ministry will hand over the INS Viraat aircraft carrier following its last operational tour of duty which it is conducting at the moment.

The Viraat is reputedly the world's oldest operational aircraft carrier and was built 57 years ago.

The British-built Centaur class carrier has sailed for the Indian navy for 29 years.

Commander C.G. Raju, public relations officer of the Eastern Naval Command, said the Viraat will be decommissioned this year.

It will then be converted into a 500-room hotel and will likely be docked at Visakhapatnam, where India's only submarine museum is located.

Chief minister Naidu expects it to draw more visitors to the state, India's Livemint website reported.

MALAYSIA: Malindo Air arrives in Amritsar

Malindo Air on 25 October began its seventh route to India from its Kuala Lumpur (KUL) base. Amritsar (ATQ) will be served thrice-weekly using the airline’s 737-900s.

The 4,276-kilometre route becomes the airline’s longest and the LCC will not face any direct competition. Amritsar joins Delhi, Kochi, Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirapally and Visakhapatnam which are the other Indian cities already served by the carrier.

In all Malindo Air now serves 19 destinations non-stop from Kuala Lumpur. Located in northern India, Amritsar’s airport handled just over one million passengers in the last year, around one quarter of which were travelling on international flights.