Foreign carriers to cut flights

Bangalore: A fall in passenger traffic has forced Singapore Airlines, SriLankan Airlines and Dragonair to reduce the number of flights out of India. “This is a part of our overall network review as there is a drop in demand globally due to the economic slowdown,” said Singapore Airlines general manager (India) CW Foo.
Singapore Airlines plans to reduce its services in the Hyderabad-Singapore sector from four to three times a week while the number of flights will be reduced from six to five times a week between Delhi and Singapore. It also plans to progressively reduce its operations between Mumbai and Singapore from five to four times a week starting February 27.
“A large proportion of our passengers consists of NRIs, tourists and business travellers whose number has fallen in recent times,” said Mr Foo.
According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), airlines faced one of their toughest years ever in 2008, with international passenger traffic dropping 4.6% on a year-onyear basis in December. Dragonair, a whollyowned subsidiary of Cathay Pacific Airways, has reduced its daily direct service between Hong Kong and Bangalore to five times a week.
SriLankan Airlines, the national airline of Sri Lanka, has already cut its flights from Bangalore, Trichi and Mumbai from January 15, besides terminating operations from Hyderabad, Coimbatore , Calicut and Cochin. ”This is a part of our route rationalising process to make connections better and to increase the occupancy levels,” said SriLankan Airlines manager (Tamil Nadu & Karnataka ) Sharuka Wickrama Adittiya. In Bangalore , the airline has cut the weekend flights reducing its daily flights to five times a week.
07/02/09 Swagata Gupta/Economic Times

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Categories: Foreign Feb 2009