Jet Airways is planning to bring back its Calcutta-Bangkok flight, joining a growing list of airlines tapping this popular route ahead of a new holiday season.

Thai Airways, which had recently withdrawn its afternoon flight to Bangkok, will reintroduce it for the five Puja days.

While the saturated Calcutta-Bangkok route is buzzing again, airlines are banking on new strategies to sustain their flights.

"Calcutta is very important for Jet Airways. We are looking at Bangkok again," Naresh Goyal, chairman of Jet Airways, said in Mumbai after the airline's annual general meeting last Friday.

Sources said the airline was planning to set up a hub in Thailand and that could have prompted the management to consider reintroducing the Bangkok flight. Outside India, Jet Airways has a base in Brussels, Belgium. Early last year, the airline had withdrawn its two flights from the Calcutta-Bangkok route because of low yield and high operational costs. Low-cost airline AirAsia too had withdrawn its flights by citing similar reasons.

Since the twin withdrawals, low-cost carrier SpiceJet started flights to and from Bangkok while competitor IndiGo introduced its second daily flight on that route. Bhutan Airways has also started a flight to Bangkok touching Calcutta.

Thai Airways had introduced a second afternoon flight in this sector, only to withdraw it earlier this year.

If Jet Airways starts flying to Bangkok again, it would have to adopt a different strategy, travel industry officials said.

"It has to look at onwards connectivity because carrying passengers from point to point (Calcutta to Bangkok and back) won't be viable given that the market is already saturated. Five daily flights have around 1,000 seats. Demand is not more than 700 to 800 seats," said Anil Punjabi, chairman (east) of the Travel Agents' Federation of India. "Carrying onward traffic could sustain the proposed flight. Passengers headed for various international destinations usually go through Delhi or Mumbai or take other international carriers."

Jet officials said they were looking at onward traffic from Bangkok to destinations like Australia, US, Singapore, Hong Kong, China and other parts of Thailand and Southeast Asia.

The Calcutta-Bangkok route is entirely dependent on tourists and traders. Lack of corporate travellers means low yield for airlines on this route, just like other sectors from Calcutta. Corporate travel ensures year-long traffic volumes for an airline whereas leisure and education travel are seasonal. Business travel is usually not price sensitive and accounts for the majority of high-fare seats sold, including those in business class.

In 2013-14, the average return fare offered by most airlines for a Calcutta-Bangkok trip ranged between Rs 12,000 and Rs 14,000. After the withdrawal of AirAsia and Jet Airways, the average return fare shot up to Rs 17,000-Rs 20,000.

Fares started dipping again the moment IndiGo and SpiceJet introduced their flights.

Travel industry sources said the average return fare was now between Rs 11,000 and Rs 13,000 but going up for the festival season.