Experiencing high load factors of up to 92 per cent, Air France plans to enhance its services to southern Indian cities and is also considering Goa and Kolkata as new destinations.
“Our load factors oscillate between 82 and 92 per cent in winter and summer seasons. The traffic between Bangalore, where services started in December 2005, and Chennai (opened in October 2006) have already reached the Mumbai levels,” Air France Executive Vice President Bruno Matheu said.
Maintaining that the highest traffic that the airline experienced was between Delhi and Paris, he said “We plan to increase our flights to Bangalore and Chennai to dailies soon.” He, however, did not give a specific time-frame about increasing frequencies to these Indian cities.
Asked about the new destinations the leading European carrier was considering for the launch of services, Matheu said the “most demanded route” was Goa, followed by Kolkata.
However, launching services to these cities depended on the bilateral air traffic agreement between France and India. But the demand to these two destinations was very high, Air France official said.
Asked about the competition it faced in attracting passengers between India and North America, who are being catered to with direct flights, and those diverted via the Gulf, he said: “Despite such a competition, the overall demand from India is growing very fast. We are able to maintain our high load factors due to the superiority of the product we offer.”
Air India is planning to establish a European hub and was considering Paris and Amsterdam among other cities to face competition from Jet Airways, which created an operational hub at Brussels.
-PTI
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