Air India looks for a new hub

New Delhi: Should the cash-strapped national carrier Air India shift its 'expensive' European hub from Frankfurt to a more reasonably priced city or use the home advantage of Delhi's T3 to leverage all its strength here and forgo the base abroad? This is a question that's grappling the airline and the government as they have shortlisted three European cities — Copenhagen, Dublin and Birmingham — as alternatives to Maharaja's German hub which AI cannot afford for too long.
Dublin offers the advantage of having immigration check facility for US that allows passengers to get over with the entry drill there only and then whiz past serpentine queues at New York's JFK or other big American airports on arrival. Britain was keen to have some positive movement on Birmingham as AI's chosen one during its PM's recent visit to India. A number of other airports have also shown interest to get AI's business.
But the aviation ministry is clear that a decision with substantial financial implications won't be taken in a hurry. "From this winter schedule, AI will start using T3 as a hub and launch more non-stop flights to north American cities like Toronto and Chicago. The number of international destinations linked from Delhi will rise to 22 apart from 47 Indian cities in the AI-Indian Airlines network. With this kind of net in Delhi, there's no real need for fund-starved AI to have an expensive hub abroad," sources said.
28/08/10 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Categories: Air India - International Aug 2010, airports aug 2010, Foreign Aug 2010, NACIL Aug 2010, New Aug 2010