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<\/p>\nIndian customers will have wider travel options as airlines introduce new flights from the end of March.<\/p>\n
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While Malaysian Airlines and Turkish Airlines are resuming passenger flights to India after a gap of two years, Air France-KLM and Lufthansa Group will scale up their existing service in a graded manner in the summer schedule.<\/p>\n
Emirates, the largest foreign airline operating in India, too, is looking to restore its pre-Covid-19 schedule of 172 flights per week.<\/p>\n
This comes as the civil aviation ministry announced the resumption of scheduled international flights from March 27.<\/p>\n
“Malaysia Airlines will steadily increase capacity to the cities we operate in — Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai, and Hyderabad — based on demand. We are looking to achieve approximately 70 per cent of our overall pre-Covid-19 capacity by the end of 2022,” the airline said in a statement.<\/p>\n
Turkish Airlines is resuming its daily service to Mumbai and Delhi and offering one to two nights of free hotel accommodation in Istanbul for passengers with lengthy transit time.<\/p>\n
Prior to the pandemic, India had direct air connectivity with around 60 countries.<\/p>\n
At present, there are air transport bubble agreements with 37 countries.<\/p>\n
While the bubble arrangements allow for scheduled flights, there are restrictions on capacity and the sale of tickets to onward destinations.<\/p>\n
The exception is Sharjah, which has more flights at present than pre-pandemic.<\/p>\n
This will change and Sharjah, too, will see a reduction in flights with the start of scheduled international flights from March 27.<\/p>\n
“We are cautiously ramping up flights,” said a Lufthansa executive.<\/p>\n
Currently, Lufthansa and Swiss operate 22 flights per week to India and this will progressively increase to 42 between July and October.<\/p>\n
The airline will resume flying to Chennai from May.<\/p>\n
Similarly, Air France-KLM will increase weekly flights from 17 to 30 from May.<\/p>\n
Airline executives said the increase in flights in summer will be based on market demand.<\/p>\n
Expansion of services also depends on the availability of aircraft and crew.<\/p>\n
“The restart of scheduled international operations does provide opportunities for further expansion.<\/p>\n
“We are evaluating options and working on additional flights,” said a spokesperson for Vistara.<\/p>\n
In Air India, the commercial department is working on the summer schedule, said an executive.<\/p>\n
It is the largest airline on international routes and had 616 weekly flights in the winter schedule of 2019.<\/p>\n
In addition to market demand, airlines will also have to factor in health and regulatory conditions.<\/p>\n
For instance, Hong Kong continues to impose travel and quarantine restrictions on arriving passengers as it struggles to come out of the pandemic.<\/p>\n
“We are committed to serving our customers from India and are optimistic to resume operations from the country.<\/p>\n
“The commencement of our services are subject to Hong Kong Special Administrative Region government’s travel restrictions, owing to the emergence of the Omicron variant,” Cathay Pacific Airways said in a statement.<\/p>\n