Newstrack

Eva Air to expand operations in the country

Chetan Kapoor - Mumbai

Subhasish Chowdhuri GM (operations) Greenway Air & Travel

Eric Chiang GM (India) Eva Air

Taipei-based Eva Air is looking to flag off its freighter operations from south India by the end of this year or early next year. The airline currently operates its cargo operations from Mumbai and Delhi. Speaking to Express AviationWorld, Eric Chiang, its general manager (India), said, "We will focus on south India - Bangalore or Chennai - for freighter operations and are hoping to have our bilateral in place by the last quarter of this year."

Elaborating on that is Subhasish Chowdhuri, general manager (Operations), Greenway Air & Travel, the GSA for Eva Air in India said, "We are conducting a feasibility survey for our cargo operations in the south to know its commercial viability. There exists an over-capacity in the market, which is killing the airlines because of the constant price wars. In this scenario, one needs to find out what is one's bottom line cost and more importantly how much does one gain out of it. Hopefully, towards the end of the year, our freighter service will commence from the south with MD-11 or the converted 747 freighter carriers."

Eva Air commenced its passenger operations from Mumbai to Taipei in December last year. Chiang adds, "Our major market is the local Indian business passenger and even from immigrant family to the American West Coast and some other destinations in North America. Since we don't have direct connections between Mumbai and the US, we have timed these connecting flights from Taipei such that the waiting period between the two flights is almost two hours, which makes it seem more like a direct flight." Due to high demand, the airline is considering increasing the frequency between the Mumbai and Taipei from the current three flights to five flights per week due to high demand.