Foreign carriers such as Singapore Airlines (SIA), Emirates Airlines and South African Airways are expecting that the growing outbound numbers from India will help them in generating better business from this market. In 2013, Singapore Airlines continued to focus on developing offerings that are customer focused and relevant to their current needs. Highlighting few landmarks for the year, David Lau, General Manager – India, Singapore Airlines shared, “On the corporate front, Singapore Airlines Group earned an operating profit of US$87 million in the second quarter of the 2013-14. Group net profit for Q2 was US$160 million, mainly attributable to higher operating profit, share of profits from associated companies and gains from the sale of aircraft.” Singapore Airlines overall passenger load factors for the second quarter ended 30 September 2013 was 81.1 per cent.
2013 has been a year of expansion for Emirates globally. “Emirates’ focus on promoting India across its network and timely incentives for outbound travel has helped it to maintain a healthy average load factor of 80 per cent during the year. We have focused on our strengths and expanded our network worldwide while giving our passengers ever-increasing options to travel and connect with one another,” said, Essa Sulaiman Ahmad, Vice President – India & Nepal, Emirates Airline. India is one of their key markets and continues to play an important role with its 185 weekly flights from 10 gateways.
South African Airways also witnessed a strong load factor on the Mumbai-Johannesburg route in 2013. “South African Airways increased the number of flights from four to seven a week. Passenger numbers and revenue increased substantially in 2013, with the India route reaping good profits as well,” said Sajid Khan, Country Manager – India, South African Airways.
During 2013, British Airways increased its service to Hyderabad to six flights per week from five flights and registered a 20 per cent increase in capacity from the city. It further increased its capacity to 40 percent from Hyderabad in November 2013. Similarly, Malaysia Airlines also added Kochi as a new destination on the India route in September 2013, along with two additional flights from Delhi and Bengaluru in October 2013.
The Indian aviation industry is expected to grow significantly in the near future as India offers a huge potential. Lau opined that the SIA’s recent announcements of the new airline venture, Tata-SIA and SpiceJet’s codeshare with Tiger Airways shows our intention to actively be a part of India’s growth story. “We recently announced a third daily Singapore Airlines service from New Delhi, 10th weekly SilkAir service from Kochi and fourth weekly SilkAir service from Visakhapatnam, taking our total weekly flight count to 107 from India. We will continue to evaluate the opportunities available to us to build on our services in the coming years,” he added.
In 2014, Emirates expect an increase in MICE and leisure traffic from India as many global events taking place in 2014. The annual Dubai Shopping Festival (DSF) taking place in January 2014, is also expected to give a substantial boost to the traffic from India to Dubai. Global markets are expected to do better than 2013 and we expect summer travel from India will also do well.” Ahmad added.
