The lure of foreign skies

Font Size

Print

Feedback

Email

Discuss

Related Articles

Jet for new flights to Patna, Chennai, RaipurJet, Kingfisher hike fuel surchargeForeign airlines may pick 49% in Indian carriersAI pilots stick to strike threat

: such as London (Heathrow), Brussels, Kuala Lampur, Singapore and Bangkok were added. This was at a time when identifying a prospect was critical. Now the company has moved into the next phase, increasing its thrust on the international sector by adding flights to the Gulf (Bahrain, Kuwait, Muscat and Doha) and North America (New York (Newark) and Toronto via Brussels). Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal said at the time of the inaugural flight to Bahrain early this month, “We will be looking at a hub in South-East-Asia besides increasing our capacity on the Gulf and US sectors. Our main strength will continue to be service because that is what will help us get occupancies.”

In short, onward connections from various hubs, more flights to locations such as Hong Kong, Zurich, Bangladesh, where it currently operates a flight to Dhaka, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Male are all on the cards for Jet. The company incidentally is looking to start a Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco flight shortly.

The effort, of course, that Jet is putting in to beef up international operations is not lost on its rivals. Kingfisher, for one, is keeping a close watch even as it gears up for a foray into the international market by August this year, launching both long-haul (non-stop Bangalore-San Francisco and Bangalore-New York, to begin with) and short-haul flights at the same time. Kingfisher Airlines chairman Vijay Mallya had indicated this at the unveiling of the new look of Deccan in October last year. He had said, “Kingfisher will fly international in 2008, taking long-haul flights, while Deccan will fly to neighbouring countries.” This announcement had effectively put all speculation to rest about Kingfisher's overseas plans. Indian aviation policy stipulates that operators with a domestic flying experience of five years can be permitted to fly overseas. But Mallya, following the go-ahead from the Union Civil Aviation Ministry, had managed to bring that criterion down to three years for his airline. Why did he do that?

Because ferrying passengers to and from India is a lucrative proposition. Net realisations per seat kilometre, according to Raajeev Batra, executive director, KPMG, are higher on international routes than domestic routes. This means that flying international is profitable. As Kuljit Singh, partner, Ernst & Young, explains,