"India will be BA’s 3rd biggest region soon"
The Economic Times,
Girish Rao, October 14, 2005
Bangalore: The India story is getting big for British Airways. It will be the third biggest operating region for the airline by next summer after the UK and the US.In fact, even as the airline increases its flights from 19 to 45 by summer 2006, it will also have ramped up its manpower from 350 to nearly 650 by then. Interestingly, this also means an end to the freeze on fresh staff indications announced by BA in the wake of severe
cost cutting to beat the slowdown some years ago. BA general manager
South Asia Andy Stern told ET India will soon in fact become the biggest market in Asia for the airline beating China (including Hong Kong) in the process. This winter, BA will introduce 16 more weekly flights (total will be 35), followed by 10 more from next summer. This will help it punch past Lufthansa (38 flights) to make BA the biggest European operator to India.
BA will offer a double daily connection from Mumbai to London Heathrow from October 30, and will make its maiden entry into Bangalore with five frequencies and increase presence in Chennai from two to six flights. Delhi, which will maintain status quo at seven weekly services now, will gain a second daily service from next year along with two more flights into Bangalore and one into Chennai. Kolkata will remain constant with three flights.
While Lufthansa is already connecting Europe to Bangalore, new entrants this winter include Air France and North West Airlines.
Even though competition is spreading its wings on the India-UK/Europe/US routes, BA continues to be bullish about this market. There is enough buoyancy in the market for the airline to even explore the Hyderabad option for introducing flights next winter, Mr Stern mentioned. Despite what appears to be surplus capacity in the short term, the airline expects the India-UK traffic to grow 18-20% year on year.
Depending on brand appeal, market positioning, network across Europe and the US, each carrier will get to capture a slice of action in this market. BA, for instance, boasts of 23 gateways in the US aside from more connections with its One World alliance partner American Airlines. While the fresh capacity will encourage airlines to capture newer travel segments, it will also put pressure on them to improve their product and become more innovative.
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