Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Jul 19, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Jul 19, 2002 |
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Airlines Air France in talks with Delta for South services Our Bureau
NEW DELHI, July 18 AIR France is in talks with its global Skyteam alliance partner, Delta Airlines, for launching services to Chennai and Bangalore, Air France's Executive Vice-President, International Commercial Affairs, Mr Patrick Alexandre, said on Thursday. "We are in discussions with Delta Airlines to launch services to Chennai and Bangalore. The discussions are at a stage that is more than preliminary. You should get an answer by the end of the year,'' Mr Alexandre said when questioned on when the flights were likely to start. Both Air France and Delta are members of the six airlines' global aviation alliance, Skyteam, which views India as a strategic market and the discussions to operate flights to South India are attempts to capitalise into the market. The airline officials said this was a reiteration of the commitment of both Air France and Skyteam to the market. "Our future in India will be with the Skyteam and we will develop a presence with them'', they said. Apart from Delta and Air France, the alliance includes Aero Mexico, Korean Airlines and CZA Czech Airlines. The officials also said their lawyers were examining the issues of Anti-Trust Immunity (ATI) to see if they could offer all the services and products, which the Skyteam had on offer to a passenger in India. Commenting on how Air France flights were doing in India, the officials admitted that the recent tensions between India and Pakistan had affected the airlines. "The volume of demand is changing and due to the border tensions, the number of incoming passengers on Air France was a bit low. What we have been doing is to develop our own segment like focussing on the business and ethnic traffic,'' the Air France officials said. At present, the airline was enjoying a passenger load factor of around 80 per cent, they said. The airlines General Manager, India, Mr Jean-Louis Calmettes, said Air France had expanded its agreement with Indian Airlines (IA) allowing through check-in at the point of origin till the final destination to 25 airports.
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