Indian Skies Witness Added Frequency

Anindita Chattopadhyay - New Delhi

India is witnessing a renewed buoyancy in air travel as airlines are going ahead with increasing frequencies and opening new ports of call. With the economy improving and recession getting over, the market is opening up leading to growth in travel. "The buoyancy is because the trend in travel is definitely on an upscale," said Ankur Bhatia, managing director, India, Amadeus. "Last year, we did 10 million bookings, of which only about one per cent was hotel and vehicle-oriented. The rest were for flights. On an average, there is a growth of about 16 per cent in travel every year. From January to June 2004, there has been a rise of 25 per cent in domestic air travel and 30 per cent in international travel," he informed.

Responding to tourism minister, Renuka Chowdhury's plea, the civil aviation ministry has promised to allot 21 additional flights between UK and India. "Apart from the existing AI and BA flights, they will start seven from this winter, seven from next summer and seven from next winter schedule," informed Amitabh Kant, joint secretary, ministry of tourism. Air-India will start two more additional flights to Los Angeles from December 1, taking its current thrice-weekly service to LA to five times a week. The carrier has been contemplating for a while to add more flights to the west coast of USA where thousands of Indian software engineers work. Plans have firmed up at last. In view of the peak inbound season, the airline has also decided to operate five additional terminator flights to London from December 1, depending on the availability of slots. While Alitalia is starting direct flights to India, Air-India is also contemplating on starting a New Delhi-Birmingham-Milan operation to link the Italy market.

Meanwhile, with the civil aviation ministry giving its nod to the national carrier to lease aircraft as a mid-term plan, Air-India has planned to dry lease at least 20 aircraft before this fiscal dovetailing with its plan to expand the network. In fact, one B747-400 is being leased for a period of three years for operating the additional five services to London. Bids have been invited for dry lease of 17 medium capacity long range aircraft and three medium capacity ultra long range aircraft for induction between 2004 and 2006. Work is on to complete paperwork for the lease before the end of this fiscal to take advantage of the finance ministry's decision to defer imposition of tax on aircraft lease till March 31, 2005 - which would mean a breather for the cash-strapped airline.

Aeroflot which currently operates eight flight out of Delhi and five out of Mumbai has decided to operate daily flights to Mumbai and fly 10 times a week to Delhi effective November 1. "Right now, our flights are overbooked and we are offloading passengers. So, the frequency is being increased to address the passenger rush," said Rajeev Chowdhury, manager - PSA, marketing and sales, Aeroflot.

Further, China Eastern Airlines has decided to operate thrice-weekly non-stop Delhi-Shanghai flights, and onwards to Beijing starting from October 31.The flights will operate every Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Indian Airlines also has plans to increase flights from Kolkata to Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. "Singapore is the likeliest destination we will fly to in the immediate future and given Kolkata's proximity to the south-east region we would like to utilise city as the base," said Anil Goyal, commercial director, Indian Airlines.

From the next summer schedule, Austrian Airlines will launch direct services between Vienna and Mumbai five times a week. Going by the trends of things, it seems tourism has arrived.