Foreign carriers scaling up India ops as growth takes off

It’s not just the domestic air carriers that are riding the aviation boom. In the past few months a number of foreign carriers have either resumed or increased services to the Indian destinations. They are looking at adding new destinations and providing value added services to lure travellers in the one of the world’s largest markets.

“The growth of the Indian economy has resulted in the growth of the masses. India has a 300 million strong middle class who can afford outbound travel,” said Olan Bundhuratana, general manager- India, Thai Airways International.

Thai Airways is not the only one looking at the India story. Lufthansa, Air Asia and Air Arabia are some of the players which have either introduced new flights, increased frequencies or lined up value-adds. “India is one of the two countries which have been able to sustain traffic. It recovered quickly to the 2006-07 passenger traffic levels. This could be one reason for more foreign carries looking at India, in fact those who suspended services lost on the opportunity,” said Suresh Nair, regional manager-Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh, Air Asia.

Within India, Mumbai and Delhi seem to be the first priority to increase frequencies. Recently, Thai Airlines announced three flights between Mumbai and Bangkok, taking the total number of weekly flights to ten. It plans go double daily on this route by April with 14 weekly flights.

“Currently, the most attractive destinations are Delhi and Mumbai as they are the hub of business,” said Bundhuratana of Thai Airways. The airline plans to commence direct flights between Mumbai and Phuket, which has turned into a favourite destination for Indian weddings, in the next one year.

“Delhi and Mumbai are our most important markets where we offer maximum frequencies,” said Axel Hilgers, director-South Asia, Lufthansa and Austrian Airlines.

Air Asia, a low-cost carrier operating on similar routes as Thai Airways, recently announced direct flights to Delhi and Kolkata from Bangkok. While it will operate daily flights from Delhi, Kolkata will have four flights a week.

Austrian Airlines, which had suspended Mumbai flights around a year-and-a-half back, has also resumed five flights on the Mumbai-Vienna route.

Hilgers from Lufthansa Group, said, “No new destinations are on our screen at the moment. Our target is to bring back the Mumbai-Munich frequency to daily levels by next summer. If the development is good we hope to fly Mumbai-Munich seven times per week in next summer schedule, from the current five,” The airlines is also looking at flying the Airbus 380 to Delhi’s newly built terminal.

“We are witnessing an excellent return of demand in all classes on all our India routes. Corporate and leisure travel both are coming back strongly,” said Hilgers.

Some of these airlines are also looking at other Indian cities. For instance, Bundhuratana of Thai Airways said Bodhgaya in Bihar attracts the Buddhist travellers from Thailand.

In the long term, Thai Airways also plans to go daily from Hyderabad by October 2011 and double-daily from Bangalore in the next one year. It also plans to fly to one or two more Indian destinations in the next couple of years—Amritsar and Ahmedabad are under consideration. Thai Airways International has 45 flights in India at the moment from Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata.

Suresh Nair of Air Asia said routes from South are the most attractive for Air Asia given the region’s proximity and cultural affinity to Malaysia. However, he did not rule out the possibility of Delhi and Kolkata routes also turning attractive overtime.
Lufthansa is also keen on increasing its exposure here and along with Mumbai is looking to increase frequencies in Pune. “May be we have another opportunity to increase flights on the Pune- Frankfurt route but this is not confirmed yet. It was recently increased from three to four,” said Hilgers. The official said rapid return of corporate travellers makes Bangalore
another key growth market for Lufthansa.

Air Arabia is also seeking to ramp up operations. “We would like to fly daily from all the main cities in India. The market is growing and the load factors are really good,” said a company official. Air Arabia has also introduced attractive visa services in India to attract travellers.