Gulf carriers have a challenge: How to get their hands on Indian air passengers without risking money on Indian airlines. Saddled with vicious competition that's seen fares drop as low as 2 cents per flight, according to Bloomberg's Anurag Kotoky, a web of state-based jet fuel taxes that can add more than 40 percent to the cost of kerosene, and chronic congestion in major cities, India's aviation industry is notoriously unprofitable. At the same time, the nation's 28-million-strong diaspora is an attractive prize for any airline with ambitions to connect the world. That's particularly the case for the Middle East: The six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council account for about 64 percent of the world's 11 million non-resident Indians, the overseas citizens who are most likely to make journeys back to the mother country.
The three state-owned carriers vying for dominance in the Gulf have taken different approaches to solving this conundrum.Etihad Airways, whose promiscuous network of alliances includes equity stakes in Alitalia, Air Berlin and Virgin Australia, has moved closest to the subcontinent with a 24 percent equity stake in the country's second-biggest privately owned airline, Jet Airways.
30/11/15 David Fickling/Bloomberg
To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline
The three state-owned carriers vying for dominance in the Gulf have taken different approaches to solving this conundrum.Etihad Airways, whose promiscuous network of alliances includes equity stakes in Alitalia, Air Berlin and Virgin Australia, has moved closest to the subcontinent with a 24 percent equity stake in the country's second-biggest privately owned airline, Jet Airways.
30/11/15 David Fickling/Bloomberg
