Chennai, June
1:
Foreign
airlines remain interested in India despite challenges.
A number of
carriers have either suspended services to India ( such as AirAsiaX, American
Airlines and Qantas) or have reduced frequencies on certain routes (Air France,
Austrian and Lufthansa).
Jet Airways
recently announced plans to suspend its Mumbai-Johannesburg service from June.
Reasons for
these reductions include insufficient traffic, poor yields and high airport
charges, according to the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation, a research agency
on aviation.
Apart from
AirAsiaX, these are largely carriers that face competition from Gulf and Asian
carriers on routes to/from India.
AirAsiaX's
withdrawal was in part due to the weakness of its direct distribution strategy
in the Indian market, which could not support the capacity generated by 11
weekly wide-body services into Kuala Lumpur, the agency said.
However, CAPA
says there are several incumbent carriers that see growth opportunities.
These are
mainly from emerging regions such as Asia, Africa and the West Asia with
examples including:
Dragonair has announced
plans to launch services to Kolkata from Nov-2012.
Etihad will
launch Abu Dhabi-Ahmedabad services, effective Nov-2012.
Virgin Atlantic
will be resuming London-Mumbai services from Oct-2012.
Kenya Airways
commenced non-stop Nairobi-Delhi service in May-2012.
Air China
launched Chengdu-Mumbai service in May-2012.
Iraqi Airways
launched routes from Baghdad to Delhi and Mumbai in first quarter. BMI
commenced London-Amritsar service in Oct-2011.
SilkAir
launched a new Singapore-Kolkata route in Aug-2011.
Singapore
Airlines has launched five additional frequencies to Mumbai last year.
Virgin Atlantic
will benefit from the suspension of Kingfisher's Mumbai-London operation.
It plans to
schedule the service to facilitate convenient onward connections to at least
four US destinations. It is expected to emerge as an important player on
Mumbai-UK and Mumbai-US routes, says CAPA.
Africa -
interest
Meanwhile,
Africa is a region of growing interest.
Kenya Airways,
which launched its second Indian destination in May-2012, has identified
Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad as cities that it plans to expand
to over the next few years.
Ethiopian
Airlines has similar expansion plans and has suggested that its Addis Ababa hub
could play an important role in carrying traffic between India and South
America.
Several
airlines that do not currently operate to India are understood to be evaluating
the possibility of entering the market in the next 12-24 months.
These include
Alitalia and Czech Airlines (in Europe); Garuda Indonesia, Jetstar Asia, Lion
Air, Myanmar Airways and Vietnam Airlines (in Asia) and Air Austral (Africa).
Expansion
But it is
carriers such as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines that have the
most aggressive expansion plans and are pushing for additional ‘bilaterals' as
their current entitlements are exhausted.
Emirates, the
largest foreign carrier in India, already operates 184 weekly services to 10
cities across India, not including its low-cost subsidiary, Flydubai, but has
exhausted its ‘bilaterals'.
Turkish
Airlines, which has a daily service to Mumbai and Delhi, is seeking to increase
this to double daily and wishes to operate to an additional six destinations.
Singapore
Airlines and Cathay Pacific are also expected to seek increased rights, CAPA
said in its analysis on Indian aviation.
raja@thehindu.co.in
Several incumbent carriers that see growth opportunities are mainly from
emerging regions such as Asia, Africa and West Asia.
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