Indo-US air pact spells good news for city

Indo-US air pact spells good news for city
New Indian Express

BANGALORE: From Silicon Plateau to Silicon Valley direct. No more long waits to hop planes at busy European or South-east Asian airports. Reduced travel time and less cases of misplaced baggage.

And the biggest advantage, much cheaper round trip fares. All this will soon become reality following the recent inking of the Indo-US pact on civil aviation. After the agreement comes into force this year, there will be more number of direct flights between Indian airports and American destinations.

Bangalore is expected to take away a chunk of the traffic as more people from the software capital are emplaning towards the US every day. On the flip side however, carriers like Singapore, Malaysian, Thai and Lufthansa, that survive mainly on traffic between India and the US will find competition hotting up.

These carriers operate out of Bangalore and provide convenient connections to the US from their hubs at Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok and Frankfurt.

“Collectively, at present these four carriers operate more than 15 flights a week. Eighty per cent of their traffic from Bangalore are US-bound. At present, only Air India operates two direct flights a week between Bangalore and New York with stopovers at Mumbai and London,” airline sources told this website’s newspaper.

Agents also said there is a high volume of traffic between Bangalore and US thanks to the software industry. With the US also planning to increase H1 B visas for Indians to work in the US, the numbers are bound to increase.

“It is due to this direct traffic, both the countries felt a need to allow more airlines to fly on these routes, increase number of destinations and flights per week. As a result, cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad will get more direct flights to US. The agreement also enables more Indian and American carriers to access new and hitherto unexplored destinations in both the countries,” Airport authorities said.

The biggest boon would be for passengers who may save upto one third the airfare and reduce travel time.

But carriers like Singapore Airlines are not worried. B.K. Ong, General Manager (India), Singapore Airlines Ltd told this website’s newspaper that the airline offered the best connectivity for US bound travellers as it operates thrice daily out of Singapore to Los Angeles (LA) and twice daily each to San Francisco and New York (NY).

“We also operate direct non-stop services to NY and LA from Singapore on our luxurious and spacious A 345 aircraft which has only 181 seats though it can accommodate over 300 seats. This reduces considerably the travel time and hassle for passengers since we operate over the Polar route. In fact, we would like to add more capacity to Bangalore if the rights are made available to us,” he said.

Soon, Bangalore airport will be swamped with unfamiliar carriers vying for prime parking slots and seeking convenient departure and arrival schedules for the long haul ahead.