New Delhi: With low-cost and hybrid air carriers having 70 per cent of the market, SkyTeam, the second biggest global airline alliance, with only full service carriers as members, is trying to woo some Indian low-cost carriers (LCCs) to join. The target it particularly favours is IndiGo.
SkyTeam is a 19-member airline alliance, with 17 per cent of the world’s airline capacity. It has only seven per cent of the Indian market but hopes to change this, with a platform for LCCs to be finalised in early 2013.
The Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) says there has been discussion between IndiGo and SkyTeam. The latter’s spokesperson did not deny it and the IndiGo leadership team was not available to comment on this.
“We will not make them members of the alliance. They will be only partners, not members,” SkyTeam chairman Leo van Wijk had said at the annual general meeting in Beijing of the International Air Transport Association. Not being a member of the alliance would mean the hybrids and LCCs would not have to spend the time and resources involved in alliance management, which can include meetings and working groups.
29/12/12 Disha Kanwar/Business Standard
