Swiss International, Austrian Airlines, Singapore Airlines adding India flights

Swiss International Airlines (SWISS) and Austrian Airlines – both subsidiaries of Deutsche Lufthansa, the flag-carrier airline of Germany – are launching additional flights to and from India.

The expansion of capacity follows a comprehensive cost-restructuring exercise by Lufthansa in 2008, when the airline had terminated 2 flights from India in order to cut costs.

Meanwhile, Singapore Airlines, the national airline of Singapore, has announced that it will raise the number of its total weekly flights from Singapore to Delhi and Mumbai (India) to 14 flights each from the 11 flights each at present.

Deutsche Lufthansa said in a statement that Swiss International Airlines will increase the number of services between Zurich (Switzerland) and Mumbai (India) from 5 flights a week to 6 flights a week from June 2010.

The number of Swiss International Airlines flights between Zurich and Delhi is being raised from 5 flights a week to 6 flights a week in the present winter schedule.

Austrian Airlines, which was integrate with Lufthansa recently, is to increase the number of flights between Vienna (Austria) and Delhi – from 5 flights a week to 6 flights a week in the summer of 2010.

In addition, all-business-class service of Lufthansa between Frankfurt (Germany) and Pune (India) is planned to be modified by converting the Boeing 737-800 aircraft operating on the Frankfurt-Pune route into a 2-class configuration, during the forthcoming summer schedule,

Axel Hilgers, director (South Asia) of Lufthansa, said in the statement that, by adding economy-class seats on the Frankfurt-Pune route, Lufthansa is responding to the demand from a growing number of leisure travellers who wish to fly directly from Pune to European cities or to trans-Atlantic destinations. The re-configuration, according to Hilgers, will raise the number of seats on the Frankfurt-Pune route from 56 business-class-only seats to a total 92 seats – 32 seats in the business-class and 60 seats in the economy- class.

This expansion of capacity also will result in the reduction in the frequency of flights between Pune and Frankfurt from 6 flights a week to 3 flights a week.

According to Axel Hilgers, Lufthansa is the biggest Europe-based carrier that flies in and out of India – operating as many as 52 flights a week from 7 destinations.

Under the bilateral agreements in place between India and Germany, carriers from both countries can together operate a total of 69 flights to and fro a week. While Lufthansa alone operates 52 flights a week, it operates 67 flights a week together with Austrian Airlines and Swiss International Airlines to Frankfurt and Munich (Germany), Vienna (Austria), and Zurich (Switzerland).