Lufthansa plan for more direct Indo-German flights

Kolkata, Aug 08: Lufthansa, one of the largest and most popular private airlines in the world from Germany, today announced its decision to restart a thrice a week Kolkata-Frankfurt direct flight from December one following over 20 per cent growth in international air passengers from Eastern India.

Announcing the new flight programme, Lufthansa Director, South East Asia, and its General Manager, Passenger Sales, Wemer Heesen told newsmen here today that in the beginning they had decided to opearate the long haul eight hours fifty minutes flight with Lufthansa's brand new Airbus 340-300 aircraft on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from Kolkata and on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from Frankfurt.

Incidentally, since November one, 1959, Lufthansa operated twice a week direct flights between Kolkata and Berlin and Kolkata and Frankfurt for more than a decade before withdrawing its serivces from the city in 1971 because of naxalite violence and lack of adequate passengers.

At present only two weekly cargo flights of Lufhansa are being operated through Kolkata airport.

He said in order to celebrate the restart of Lufthansa flights from the city after a gap of 35 years, they had decided to introduce a special introductory return fare from Frankfurt of Rs 19,000. In case of the connecting flight to the USA from Frankfurt, the new fare would be only Rs 35,000 each, Mr Heesen announced and claimed that the new introductory offer would remain valid for three months.

With the introduction of three direct Kolkata-Frankfurt flights, the total number of Lufthansa flights from India every week had gone up to 45 now, Mr Heesen said adding in case of satisfactory business, the number of weekly flights from six Indian cities would be increased to 50 and more by next year.

At present Lufthansa operates direct flights to Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin from New Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.

The Lufthansa South Asia chief, however, refused to divulge his business plan or share any financial data with the media in terms of passenger expectancy and future prospect of growth.

But he said in case of increased business from the Eastern region, Lufthansa might consider either to increase the number of passenger capacity in each flight by introducing Boeing 747 or increasing the number of flights from thrice a week to daily with the 235-seat capacity Airbus 340-300.

Mr Heesen said in the wake of India emerging as the second fastest growing economic powerhouse of the world after China, Lufthansa had chalked up a detailed programme to increase its pan India presence manifold. " Accordingly, we have decided to set up a fully integrated maintenance unit of the German airlines in the country catering to the demand of not only from the six Indian cities but also from the neighbouring countries in the South and South East Asia, " Mr Heesen said.

About his plan to bring in more Indian cities under Lufthansa' Airlines network, Mr Heesen said though at present they had no such plan, the possibility of introducing Lufthansa flight to Pune and Ahemedabad in Western region could not be ruled out in future.

Lufthansa South East Asian chief, however, categorically denied recent newspaper reports about any plan to revive the company's tie-up with the Modi Air, which had also bundled out of aviation business.

" We also have no immediate plan to enter into the domestic air services in India under joint venture with any domestic partner, " Mr Heesen emphasised.

German Consul General in Eastern India G Weerman, also present on the occasion, highlighted the tremendous business prospect in Eastern India in general and in West Bengal in particular in the coming years. " I hope increased business prospect would encourage Lufthansa to introduce more direct flights from the city soon. " He also informed that a 20 member top level German business delegation was coming to Kolkata in January next to sign several trade agreements with the state government as well as with a number of private partners worth several million Euros.

UNI