IGI can become an international transit hub with govt push

New Delhi: Delhiites finally got a world-class airport on Saturday. But without a financially strong ‘desi’ airline, whether they get the connectivity hubs similar to those operated by Emirates, Singapore Airlines, Lufthansa in Dubai, Singapore, Frankfurt or London, respectively, remains to be seen.
Kingfisher chairman Vijay Mallya said he would make T3 the company’s first international hub. ‘‘We fly from Delhi to Bangkok, Hong Kong and London. Now we’ll offer connectivity from London to these two places with T3 as the transit point,’’ Mallya said. Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav did not say if his airline was going to leverage on IGI’s new features.
AI uses Frankfurt as its hub and Jet Airways has its ‘‘scissor operations" in Brussels. Majority of Gulf carriers are known to fill up their widebody planes to America, Europe, Africa and even Australia by having daily flights from numerous Indian cities. These flights land at the same time in their hubs and then passengers disembark to fill up big planes to rest of the world. Gulf carriers earn almost up to 40% of their profits from transit traffic to and from India.
GMR group chairman G M Rao lamented the fact that hubs for Indian travellers are outside the country in his welcome speech and requested govt to take steps to make Delhi a truly hub airport.
04/07/10 Saurabh Sinha/Economic Times

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Categories: Airports Jul 2010, New Jul 2010