KLM hopes India will allow it to increase flights

AIR FRANCE-KLM's current Indian services are limited under the air bubble restrictions but the airline is hopeful that the Indian government will allow it to increase its flights to meet the rising demand, a senior executive of the carrier said.

Since July 2020, India has allowed limited special international flights with passenger restrictions under air bubbles formed with approximately 28 countries, including France and The Netherlands. Scheduled international flights continue to remain suspended in India since March 23 last year.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the airline operated 38 weekly flights from three Indian cities - Bengaluru, Delhi and Mumbai - to Paris and Amsterdam, Jean-Noel Rault, general manager (Indian Sub-continent), Air France-KLM, told PTI in an interview.

Currently, Air France-KLM is operating 17 weekly flights from four Indian cities - Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai - to Paris and Amsterdam as per the air bubbles formed between India and France in July 2020 and India and The Netherlands in November 2020.

When asked if he sees the demand rising on India flights, Rault stated, "India has a very strong VFR (visiting friends and relatives) market. This in my opinion is one of the key factors to drive demand."

"We have also seen the student segment develop favourably thanks to the convenient connections we offer and have received positive response to the Chennai–Paris direct operations launched in June by Air France," he added.

The airline's expectation was business and corporate travel will progressively grow in second half of 2022, Rault noted.

However, the carrier's scope was still limited in terms of frequency and destinations under the air bubble restrictions, he added.

"We are hopeful with the progressive opening of borders we will be allowed to increase our frequency to meet the evolving demand," he mentioned.

Rault said Air France-KLM in the current specific circumstances in India has been operating services with the aim to cover the variable costs of each individual flight operation.

"In trends, the variation has been high in load factors in the past 12 months...On a positive note, for the first time since the pandemic we see load factors moving up for flights to India", he added.

Air France-KLM believes that increase in flights' frequencies should be considered with the progressive opening of international borders and growing demand, he said.

"We continue to interact with relevant authorities along with the French embassy and The Netherlands embassy in India. Together with our embassies, we continue to explore opportunities with the Indian authorities to expand the number of flights from India," Rault noted.

When asked if he thinks India should open scheduled international flights now, he replied it could be prudent for India to consider moving towards "a normal world with progressive reopening of international commercial operations" as the country is doing very well with the vaccination drive and the Covid-19 situation improving globally.

"This would be instrumental in facilitating travel to and from India, boost incoming tourism to India, which is much needed to help the economy and local operators who have been impacted severely due to the pandemic," Rault added.

Civil Aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia had in September said that the Centre has to look to put in place certain systems to boost long-haul international flights of Indian carriers to places such as Europe and South America.

Lufthansa group CEO Carsten Spohr had last month said that restricting air traffic between India and Germany is hurting both the economies and the airline group was eagerly waiting for the Indian government to allow more flights between the two countries.

(PTI)