Foreign airlines catch return flight to India

Foreign airlines that folded operations in India in the wake of the economic downturn are flying back to a market expected to grow at the fastest pace in the world in the next two decades.
While RAK Airways of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Austrian Airlines AG are restarting flights they closed down over the past two years, carriers such as AirAsia Bhd, Lufthansa Airlines, Swiss International Air Lines AG, EgyptAir, Etihad Airways PJSC, FlyDubai and Air Seychelles have either introduced services or plan to add new routes to India.
India’s domestic air traffic grew 14.87% and international air traffic 15.54% in fiscal 2010, according to the ministry of civil aviation. Several analysts at brokerages tracking airline stocks expect double-digit growth in passenger traffic this fiscal too.
RAK Airways is restarting operations to Kozhikode, as well as Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, by this month-end.
Austrian Airlines, acquired by Deutsche Lufthansa AG in September 2009, will relaunch services between Vienna and Mumbai on 1 November.
Beginning 31 October, Lufthansa German Airlines, Swiss International Airlines and Austrian Airlines—all owned by the group—will fly 75 weekly flights from various Indian cities to Frankfurt, Munich, Zurich and Vienna, according to a statement by the Luftansa Group.
Swiss International will serve both its Indian routes, Delhi–Zurich and Mumbai–Zurich, with daily flights, up from six a week to Delhi and five a week to Mumbai currently.
Air Seychelles will start a direct flight to Chennai from November to meet the demand from Seychelles’ growing Indian community, says its website.
Cairo-based Egypt Air will add one more flight to its Mumbai route to make it five flights a week from 2 November, general manager (India) Ahmed Wasfy said. Etihad Airways of the UAE will add Bangalore as its eighth Indian destination from 1 January.
Other West Asian carriers such as Qatar Airways and the UAE’s Emirates Airlines, as well as Malaysia’s low-cost carrier AirAsia, also plan to expand operations in India.
22/10/10 P.R. Sanjai/Live Mint

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Categories: Foreign Oct 2010, Indian Aviation- In General Oct 2010