LONDON: With an eye on the large ethnic Indian population — estimated at 1.2 million — in the U.K., Air India has launched a direct flight to London, connecting Kolkata and Dhaka. With the introduction of the Delhi-Dhaka-Kolkata-London thrice a week flight, Air India is seeking to enhance its market share of 20 per cent on the India-U.K. route — a market estimated at over 1.7 million one-way passengers annually.

"The thrust of Air India is to offer more connectivity from India to destinations as varied as the Asia-Pacific, America and Europe. We are now offering direct connections from 13 cities in India spread over 11 States," Jitender Bhargava, Director, Public Relations and Corporate Affairs, told presspersons here on Monday. It reflected the airline's broad policy decision to operate international flights from various cities instead of only Delhi and Mumbai, the traditional gateways.

New gateway

While Air India, till last month, operated flights only to London in the U.K., Birmingham became a new gateway from May 15 when the airline launched its Delhi-Amritsar-Birmingham-Toronto flight.

Explaining the airline's efforts to substantially expand capacity to London, Capt. A.K. Sharma, Regional Director of Air India for U.K. and Europe, said it pursued the operation of additional terminators to London with the British authorities and had been successful in getting slots at Heathrow. The direct flight to London from Dhaka and Kolkata would also serve the Delhi-Dhaka, Dhaka-Kolkata market, offering more comfortable travel that is also shorter in terms of total travel time.

Interestingly, when Air India's modern, wide-bodied jetliner Boeing 777-200 touched down at Dhaka's Zia International Airport on June 18, it was after 30 years that the airline had flown to Bangladesh. It is also an attempt on Air India's part to tap the sizeable market of Bangladeshi nationals who are among an estimated eight lakh people, including Indians, who travel annually on indirect services offered by airlines from West Asia, CIS countries and Europe.

With the introduction of the latest flight from Kolkata, Air India now has a total of 24 flights a week to the U.K. — 21 to London and three to Birmingham — doubling its capacity on the India-U.K. route in the past seven months and offering direct connections from Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Kolkata.

As the global civil aviation market and the tourist sector is poised to grow annually by 20 per cent, Air India has chalked out ambitious plans to overcome shortage of planes.

It will induct more leased aircraft and push for Government clearance for purchasing 50 new long and short-haul aircraft from the U.S. major Boeing — a deal estimated to be worth $ 6 billions.

The India-U.K. market, estimated to be worth Rs. 1,000 crores annually in two-way air traffic, offers Air India keen competition as well as an opportunity to exploit it.

Asked if competition from private Indian carriers such as Jet Airways, which began Mumbai-London operations in May, would cut into Air India's services, Mr. Bhagava said the airline was offering an upgraded, latest product with first class flat beds, upgraded business class and convenient connections which would compete with other airlines.

Mr. Bhargava said he hoped that despite a rising fuel bill due to an increase in aviation turbine fuel prices, Air India would notch up profit for the fourth consecutive year in 2005-06 fiscal as a result of the major thrust on the U.K. and U.S. operations.

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