The low cost public sector carrier, Air India Express, will soon start operations from some southern cities to the Gulf and West Asia at 30 per cent lower fares than the regular ones, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel said on Thursday.

The low cost carrier, a fully-owned subsidiary of Air-India, whose "fares will be 30 per cent less than the regular fare will originate from some southers cities like like Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Hyderabad", he told the newly constituted Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to the civil aviation ministry.

The international flagship would also begin a new Mumbai-London flight from December 2, he told the members including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and former Civil Aviation Minister and BJP MP Ananth Kumar.