Aviation

Austrian rumoured to rethink India strategy

Winter schedule will witness drop of 2 flights

Chetan Kapoor - Mumbai

Speculations surround Vienna-based Austrian Airlines as it is rumoured within the trade circles to be pulling out its operations from India. This is because a 42.75 per cent stake of the airline is reportedly up for sale by the Austrian government and bidders include Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and Russia's S7 Airlines.

A source from Austrian's sales division requesting anonymity confirmed, "We have heard about this internally but don't think that it will happen instantly. It will take about one or two years before we withdraw." The airline has presently withdrawn two flights from its winter schedule which were otherwise daily flights for the last couple of years. Amey Amladi, its GM (Western & Southern India), rubbished the rumours of pulling out of India. He said, "For the past three years we have been adding two flights during November in the winter schedule from Mumbai and then withdrawing the same during the summer. This year, our intention is to streamline our operations and maintain five flights as the load factors from Mumbai are pretty positive. We are here to stay and there are no two ways about it."

Clearing the air about the airline's operation in the country, Herbert Koschier, its GM (South West Asia), told Express TravelWorld in an e-mail response, "Our GSA Jet Air has provided us with a new office at Connaught Place in Delhi and we will be moving into a new office in Mumbai shortly, also provided by our GSA. This should answer your questions regarding our cooperation with our present GSA and our continued services to India."

In terms of business, the airline claims to have achieved 30 per cent growth over the last year in its revenue from the business class despite the slowdown. "We have been strengthening our presence in markets like Mumbai, Pune, Gujarat, and South India too has been important to us because of our corporate tie-ups," added Amladi. He added that the airline is still working towards flying directly to South India as early as second half of 2009, subject to government approvals. The network carrier is also focusing on destinations not served by direct flights like Tel Aviv, Madrid and Barcelona.