Buoyed by the impressive growth in passenger traffic in India, foreign airlines are on an expansion spree here. Star Alliance member Lufthansa plans to launch operations on the Pune-Germany sector and increase its flights along its existing routes, also Cathay Pacific will start operations in the Hong Kong-Chennai sector. Another Hong Kong based carrier, Dragonair, is in the process of providing flights to Bangalore.
According to data compiled by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), 16.21 million people flew on international routes to and from India between April and October. This saw a growth of 17.1% over the same period in the last fiscal year. "There is a strong demand on the India-Hong Kong sector and we have seen a load factor of nearly 90% for quite some time. With India and Hong Kong increasing the seat entitlements for each other, we are planning to expand our operation in India significantly" Cathay Pacific general manager (India, Middle East, Africa & Pakistan), Tom Wright said.
Cathay Pacific plans to launch 23 new flights a week connecting Indian cities such as Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai with Hong Kong by early June. Another Asian carrier Air China is also looking at adding more destinations like Bangalor and Kolkata on its Indian network, besides increasing its frequency on the Delhi-Beijing route from the existing three flights a week. GULF-based carriers such as Emirates, Gulf Air and Qatar Airways are also aggressively looking at tapping into the traffic growth in non-metro cities such as Calicut, Amritsar and Lucknow. "There is enough scope for all the airlines to operate in India as nearly 40% bilateral seat entitlements are still not being utilized. Also, we are improving airport infrastructure in the country to provide air-connectivity to more points," an official in the ministry of civil aviation said.
As for an industry estimate, foreign airlines are currently operating about 1,157 services per week in India.
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