Mumbai: Even as Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh wants Air India to compete with the Jet-Etihad alliance, the national carrier's dominance in India's international market is under threat due to liberal grant of traffic rights and the airline's own limitations such as smaller fleet size, fewer code share, and frequent flyer partnerships.
On many key international routes, Air India has a single daily flight. Take, for instance, the India-Hong Kong route. Cathay Pacific and its subsidiary Dragon Air have 46 weekly flights from India and Hong Kong. Air India has a seven weekly flights between Delhi and Hong Kong and the same aircraft flies onward to Osaka and Seoul, effectively limiting the capacity.
Ditto with Frankfurt and Paris routes from where Lufthansa and Air France connect various points in India, whereas the national carrier flies one daily direct flight from Delhi.
Excluding its low-cost arm (AI Express), Air India has 341 weekly departures on foreign routes. This includes 155 flights to the entire Gulf region, while Emirates alone has 185 flights a week from Dubai to 10 cities in India.
04/05/13 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard
