Mumbai: British Airways will add flights to Hyderabad and Chennai and introduce new cabins on its wide body plane fleet this year facing growing competition on India-UK and India-US market. The airline however has no immediate plans to invest in India or enter into code share alliances with domestic airlines.
"We have a strong local market and one of the best networks. We fly to 19 destinations in the US while Emirates flies to eight cities. However we do not need to focus on London Heathrow solely as a transit hub,'' said Christopher Fordyce, British Airways regional commercial manager.
Over the last few years Dubai and other Gulf airports have emerged as major transit points for Indian travellers. According to a civil aviation ministry report Dubai, Doha, Frankfurt, Singapore, Sharjah are the top five hubs serving India. London stood at sixth place with half a million transit passengers in 2010-11.
16/02/13 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard
