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BA seeks to double flights to India

BS Economy Bureau

British Airways said on Wednesday that it wants to double its flights to India from the current 18 weekly flights and also add new destinations to its schedule.

"Ideally, we want the Indian government to completely open the bilaterals. We would like to have as large (bilateral rights) as we can get. We would at least like to double our flights which would give us 4-5 years worth of growth," British Airways general manager (South Asia) Alan Briggs said.

He added that the airline was keen to increase frequencies to Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi and also add cities like Bangalore and Hyderabad to the list of cities it flies to.

"Despite the September 11 terror strikes, there has been a steady growth of passenger traffic from India and, now, we are flying fairly full," Briggs said, adding the airline had asked the British government to negotiate with India to enhance the bilateral air traffic rights.

British Airways, at present, operates 18 direct flights from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai to the UK, Europe, US and Canada.

Mumbai and Delhi are served daily with Boeing 747's and twice-weekly from Chennai while 777s are used to serve the twice-weekly flights from Kolkata.

British Airways might hike its fares in future to improve returns which, Briggs said, were low at present despite the increase in traffic. He said the airline has started an advance fare scheme from April 1, 2002 for its tickets which cost between Rs 34,000-51,000 to reduce cancellations and bookings and to boost yields.

He said an ongoing global staff-restructuring programme of British Airways has not had any effect on the Indian operations till date.

The airline has started a programme to cut its staff-strength by 13,000 following the global slowdown in the aviation industry.

"There was no reduction in the first phase of staff-cutting while in the second phase, which started from February 2002 till March 2004, there has been no effect on India at present," Briggs said.

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