Air India to wind up Frankfurt hub, take Alliance regional

New Delhi: The Air India management has some ambitious plans to turn around the loss-making national carrier. These include ceasing hub operations at Frankfurt, converting subsidiary Alliance Air into a full-fledged regional carrier and beginning domestic low-cost operation through Air India Express.
Already, plans have been finalised to stop ‘scissor’ or hub operations from Frankfurt, from October 31 and the six flights which converge there at present will be converted into direct operations to Europe and the Americas.
Not only will cancelling hub operations at Frankfurt save the national carrier `200-250 crore every year, this move will also bring in smaller Indian cities into the airline’s international network because the direct connections bring into the international fold cities such as Ahmedabad.
The earlier practice of routing passengers from Ahmedabad, Delhi and Mumbai and from Chicago, Toronto and Newark to Frankfurt will be discontinued.
Then, official sources tell us the airline also plans to convert Alliance Air into a full fledged regional airline — which means connecting a major city with several smaller stations in each region.
At the moment, the Alliance Air hubs are only in Delhi and Kolkata and new ones may be created at Chennai, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.
25/10/10 Sindhu Bhattacharya/Daily News & Analysis

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Categories: Air India - International Oct 2010, Air India Regional Oct 2010, Foreign Oct 2010, NACIL Oct 2010