Foreign Airlines Announce Additional Flights to and from India
NEW DELHI, March 26: Ahead of the normalisation of the scheduled international services from Sunday, a number of foreign airlines on Saturday announced addition and re-introduction of flights to and from India.
Dubai-based Emirates, which is the biggest foreign carrier to operate to India, said it would reinstate its pre-pandemic frequencies.
Emirates said it would reinstate its 170 weekly flights to Indian airports from Dubai effective April 1. The airline said it will be operating 35 weekly flights from Mumbai, 28 from Delhi, 24 from Bengaluru, 21 each from Chennai and Hyderabad, 14 from Kochi, 11 from Kolkata, nine from Ahmedabad and seven from Thiruvananthapuram.
The UK-based Virgin Atlantic announced a new second daily service to Delhi from London starting June 1. The airline already operates one daily flight on the Delhi-London sector, and one on the Mumbai-London sector.
Thailand’s national carrier Thai Airways is also planning to operate 35 flights every week between India and Thailand during summer 2022.
American Airlines said it was looking to expand its services to India and planned to launch its Seattle-Bengaluru flight later this year.
Finnair, which already operates on the Delhi-Helsinki route, will add three weekly flights between Mumbai and Helsinki.
German carrier Lufthansa announced that it is resuming direct flights between Chennai and Frankfurt thrice every week effective April 29.
Dutch airline KLM said it will respond to the resumption of scheduled international flights from India by increasing its frequencies to Delhi and Mumbai. The airline flies to India from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport.
Poland’s LOT Polish Airlines will commence passenger flights from Warsaw to Mumbai from May 31, and resume flights on the Delhi-Warsaw sector effective March 29.
Malaysia Airlines, the country’s national carrier, will resume 25 weekly flights from Kuala Lumpur to several Indian cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad from March 27.
In the last two years after the pandemic-driven suspension of air services and later resumption of limited flights through the “air bubble agreements,” the overseas airlines could operate only a limited number of flights. With the resumption of scheduled flights, carriers will now be able to operate at capacity in accordance with the original air service agreements negotiated between India and their home countries.
The industry experts believe that additional international flights could impact the airfares to and from India and some relief to the passengers. Prior to the pandemic, a total of 4,700 international flight departures were being operated every week from Indian airports which was restricted to about 2,000 weekly flights under the air bubble system causing spurt in air fares.
(Manas Dasgupta)
