India trumped Australia to become the world’s top market for Malaysia Airlines where it is further adding both flights and destinations in anticipation of continued surge in demand for capacity.

The Malaysian government-funded full-service carrier increased the number of flights per week to India to 55 recently and plans to hike it up to 60 per week before the end of this year, a top company official said.

Speaking to FE, Yin May Lau, group chief marketing and customer experience officer of Malaysia Airlines, said, “We are already above 90% of pre-Covid times in our India operations. By putting in 60 flights we will reach the 2019 numbers. When the pandemic started to wane, India showed one of the most encouraging recoveries we have seen so far.”

The airline is covering six destinations right now–Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi–while three more–Puducherry, Trichy and Trivandrum–will be added in the coming months.

The capacity already operational by Malaysia Airlines in India is more than double compared with the operational capacity of the airline in China, the world’s second largest aviation market.

India’s aviation market, the third largest in the world, has surprised many with its steep ascent after lifting of the Covid-19 curbs and aided by the sharp pick-up in the country’s economy.

“India is the largest market for you globally. Before Covid-19 it was in the top three. Australia was number one but the intensity in growth shown by the Indian market is higher than Australia at the moment,” Lau added.

India’s top six airlines including IndiGo, Air India, Vistara, logged more than 90% load factors in May, highlighting the underlying demand of the market. Load factor percentage defines the occupied seat on average in that given period. This phenomenon occured for the first in many years in the country.

Malaysia Airlines served 225,000 passengers in the January to March quarter, according to data shared by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. It was among the top 10 foreign carriers in the country on the basis of number of passengers carried.

According to the DGCA data, Indian airlines served 63.6 million passengers during January to May, recording a rise of 36% as against 46.73 million passengers flown in the same period last year. Market watchers claim that India’s growth has been better than those clocked by most other large economies.

Malaysia Airlines has a mix of different types of aircraft in its operations, including Airbus A350, A330 and Boeing 737, making it a total of 100 planes. It has placed orders for further 45 such commercial jets which will see deliveries starting in August stretching to 2025.

“In March, we pulled back from Brisbane and replaced it with Dhaka. Post-the pandemic, global markets are behaving very differently. We are putting our inventory where the demand is. We connected to five other destinations in Australia,” Lau added.

She further added that the airline has interline deals with Vistara and Air India and is looking to have codeshare with the Indian carriers.