British Airways, Air India and other airlines are preparing to launch new flights from India to the UK to take advantage of the growing travel boom. London is one of most lucrative destinations for carriers that connect to India. The British capital is also home to a large Indian Diaspora, and is a top tourist and business destination in India.
British Airways offers 56 daily flights between Heathrow and Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad. The airline will begin a new daily Delhi to Heathrow flight in April next year. This will bring the total number of flights to India up to 63 per weekly.
“India is our second largest market. It is very important strategically.”
Sean Doyle, British Airways CEO, said at an event celebrating the airline’s centennial year of flying to India that “we have a number of links, both from a diaspora and trade perspective.”
Air India, a Tata Group company, is the only Indian carrier that flies between the two countries. It will increase its flights from Bengaluru to London, Goa to London, and Ahmedabad. It will also increase the frequency of flights between Amritsar to Birmingham from three weekly flights.
Air India operates 31 flights per week to Heathrow. However, due to the lack of slots at Heathrow Airport, Air India also flies from Ahmedabad to Gatwick Airport. London Heathrow, with its share of over 30% seats on the route, is the largest airport connecting India to Europe.
Air India leases a dozen slots a week from Scandinavian Airlines at Heathrow to alleviate the current situation of slot scarcity. This May, India’s and the UK’s air services agreement was revised. This revision will enable carriers from both nations increase flights from London Heathrow airport to Delhi and Mumbai from 56 to 70% per week.
Under the new agreement, the weekly quotas of flights between Indian cities and London will increase from 56 up to 70. This is especially significant because London has a large Indian diaspora. This makes these routes very lucrative for airlines. Indian airlines claim they will not be in a position to take advantage as their expansion has been stalled by the lack of landing slot availability at Heathrow.
The need to expand this agreement was created after airlines like Virgin Atlantic and British Airways in the UK exhausted their weekly aircraft seat capacity quota, which prevented them from launching any new flights. Doyle, British Airways, stated that due to the high demand on the India-UK flight route there should be no limit on flights between the two countries.Doyle said that it was important for the air services agreement to keep pace with the growth of demand and the development of the economy.
Shai Weiss told ET that India is now Virgin Atlantic’s third largest market after North America, Caribbean and South America. The London-based carrier launched a second daily flight to Mumbai from London Heathrow in March, and added a third flight in October.
Calum Laming said that many Indian passengers continue their journey to the US and Canada. He said that depending on the time of year and the season, it is possible for half of the passengers to be connecting passengers.
Laming said British Airways designs its schedule so that passengers can connect to US flights from India without having to wait long at the airport.
