Foreign carriers eye premium passengers

Mumbai: At a time when Air India is considering reducing the seats or doing away with the first class section in its long-haul flights, international carriers are wooing premium passengers from India.
Cathay Pacific will introduce first class service on its Mumbai-Hong Kong route later this month. Earlier this week, Lufthansa also announced upgrading its first class seats on the Frankfurt-Mumbai and Delhi routes. It said India was among the first countries in Asia where the new first class seats are being introduced.
"This is the first time we will introduce first class on our direct Mumbai-Hong Kong flight. We will operate a Boeing 747-400 plane, which has nine first class seats,'' said Cathay Pacific's sales and marketing manager (India) Rakesh Raicar. Till now, the airline operated an Airbus A330 plane, which has economy and business class configurations.
On the Mumbai-Hong Kong sector, Cathay Pacific's India office earns 23 per cent revenue from business class products. There has seen a growth of nine per cent this year, he said. Raicar did not share the total revenue as bookings are made world over.
"We see potential in introducing first class seats on the Mumbai-Hong Kong route and we are expecting 50-60 per cent loads,'' he said. On an average, first class fares are six-seven times higher than economy fares.
29/10/11 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard

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Categories: Foreign Oct 2011