In an announcement, SpiceJet said that it will start 12 new non-stop flights and frequencies from 20 January.

In an attempt to improve its reach in Tier II cities and increase regional connectivity across India, new flights will be launched to cities like Dehradun, Jaipur, Varanasi and Madurai. "With the new flights, passengers from Dehradun, Jammu, Jaipur, Amritsar, Varanasi, Madurai and Vijayawada can now easily travel to a host of other cities," the airlines said.

The carrier will also increase frequency in its existing routes. Jaipur-Varanasi route will now have two daily flights, whereas Chennai-Madurai and Hyderabad-Vijayawada routes will expand to 4 and 3 frequencies respectively.

"SpiceJet will be the first Indian carrier to introduce daily direct flights on the Dehradun-Jammu, Dehradun-Jaipur and Dehradun-Amritsar routes," it further said.

Except for Chennai-Madurai route where there are no flights on Tuesdays, flights in all routes operate on a daily basis. SpiceJet said that it will deploy Bombardier Q400 aircraft in these routes.

Last week, the airlines announced direct flights to Shirdi from Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Bhopal and Chennai. These flights will be launched from 6 January, except for Chennai route which will start from 10 January.

Meanwhile, its competition, the IndiGo airlines, has also announced new flights from Hyderabad to Bhopal and Jabalpur. These non-stop flights will start from 5 January.