Air India is looking seriously at resuming direct flights to Manchester, it emerged today.
Mr KD Row, regional head of Air India for the UK and Ireland was speaking in Manchester as part of an Indian business delegation organised by inward investment agency MIDAS.
He said: "We were operating here, but withdrew for reasons of our own. We've commissioned a feasibility study.
"We've not set a deadline for this, but we already operate 10 flights a week out of Birmingham so we're looking at regional hubs. We have commissioned 120 new aircraft and as they enter our fleet, we can look at new routes."
The Indian delegation, which included representatives from software engineering giant Aztecsoft, business consultancy Hexaware, engineer HCL Technologies and the ICICI Bank, said they had been "highly impressed" with Manchester as a business location.
The party visited Manchester's billion-pound business district, Spinningfields, to attend meetings at the Royal Bank of Scotland and MEN Media.
The delegation also attended the one day international at Old Trafford between England and India, where they were hosted by the North West Development Agency's chief executive Stephen Broomhead.
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/ ... may_return
Air India set to return to Manchester
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pkjet
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Air India set to return to Manchester
You can't be all things to all people...so just be nice !
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pkjet
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behramjee
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Air India has tentatively chosen Munich (MUC), Germany as its EU "scissors hub" airport along the same line as to how Brussels (BRU) functions for Jet Airways (9W). MUC airport has also confirmed that it has for the time being given AI two pairs of early morning slots for its DEL-JFK and BOM-ORD bound flights. AI in return has informed MUC that BOM-MUC-ORD would be flown daily by a B 744 where as DEL-MUC-JFK would be flown using a B 773ER. The two EU airports that were in contention for AI's business were VIE & MUC.
Slot timings given to AI for ORD & JFK flights via MUC are as follows :
Arr from BOM - 0630 a.m. Dep MUC 0820 a.m. - ORD operated by B 744
Arr from ORD - 0640 a.m. Dep MUC 0830 a.m. - BOM operated by B 744
Arr from DEL - 0645 a.m. Dep MUC 0820 a.m. - JFK operated by B 773
Arr from JFK - 0715 a.m. Dep MUC 0835 a.m. - DEL operated by B 773
It is interesting to note that MUC is now a serious contender to become AI's primary hub in Europe for North America bound flights, a concept that has some pros but more cons attached to it. On the positive side, MUC is a huge Star Alliance hub airport in EU which is useful for AI as it will be joining this airline group shortly.
From MUC, AI can get feeder traffic from LH & OS's EU network bound for USA which shall prove to be useful especially in the low season. However, when an airline creates an intermediate hub, it is made with the forecast that there is a fair amount of O&D + 5th freedom traffic available on the entire route that is created to be flown via that hub + the 5th freedom route that the airline hopes to fly on sees little or no competition on it (such as ET's DEL-PEK route, DL's DKR-NBO/JNB route, 9W's future BRU-LAX, PVG-SFO routes etc). This is why QF's & NW's hubs in SIN & NRT respectively work because from their home market, there is decent O&D to SIN/NRT + onward traffic originating from their respective home markets & the intermediate hub bound for the final destination.
After examining the points above, none of this holds true for MUC as the O&D demand between India and MUC is minimal to say the least and on the trans-atlantic 5th freedom routes that AI hopes to fly out of MUC i.e. to JFK, ORD & LAX/SFO/IAD/IAH in the future, UAL & LH already offer daily nonstop flights on all of these routes except IAH. Therefore, one fails to see what AI hopes to extract by making MUC its biggest hub airport outside of India!
It is more feasible for Air India & Star Alliance to push for a new niche market segment to tap such as my last week's suggestion of making Manchester, UK (MAN) its intermediate hub for USA/Canada bound flights from India. From BOM, DEL & AMD, there is high O&D demand bound for Manchester + a smaller amount from HYD/MAA/BLR/CCU. From MAN, no airline flies to India nonstop + no airline flies nonstop to IAD, LAX, SFO & IAH from MAN thus providing Air India with an unique advantage of having a monopoly position on both India-MAN + MAN-North America flights. Flights via MAN could be routed in the following manner :
BOM-MAN-ORD : daily B 744
DEL-MAN-JFK : daily B 773ER
AMD-MAN-IAH : daily B 773ER
HYD-MAN-LAX : daily B 772ER
BLR-MAN-SFO : daily B 773ER
MAA-MAN-IAD : daily B 773ER
Take into account that Manchester and its surrounding areas have a huge Indian/Sikh population and currently lacks nonstop flights to India. If AI want to take the initiative here, the MAN market is ready for them to exploit.
Slot timings given to AI for ORD & JFK flights via MUC are as follows :
Arr from BOM - 0630 a.m. Dep MUC 0820 a.m. - ORD operated by B 744
Arr from ORD - 0640 a.m. Dep MUC 0830 a.m. - BOM operated by B 744
Arr from DEL - 0645 a.m. Dep MUC 0820 a.m. - JFK operated by B 773
Arr from JFK - 0715 a.m. Dep MUC 0835 a.m. - DEL operated by B 773
It is interesting to note that MUC is now a serious contender to become AI's primary hub in Europe for North America bound flights, a concept that has some pros but more cons attached to it. On the positive side, MUC is a huge Star Alliance hub airport in EU which is useful for AI as it will be joining this airline group shortly.
From MUC, AI can get feeder traffic from LH & OS's EU network bound for USA which shall prove to be useful especially in the low season. However, when an airline creates an intermediate hub, it is made with the forecast that there is a fair amount of O&D + 5th freedom traffic available on the entire route that is created to be flown via that hub + the 5th freedom route that the airline hopes to fly on sees little or no competition on it (such as ET's DEL-PEK route, DL's DKR-NBO/JNB route, 9W's future BRU-LAX, PVG-SFO routes etc). This is why QF's & NW's hubs in SIN & NRT respectively work because from their home market, there is decent O&D to SIN/NRT + onward traffic originating from their respective home markets & the intermediate hub bound for the final destination.
After examining the points above, none of this holds true for MUC as the O&D demand between India and MUC is minimal to say the least and on the trans-atlantic 5th freedom routes that AI hopes to fly out of MUC i.e. to JFK, ORD & LAX/SFO/IAD/IAH in the future, UAL & LH already offer daily nonstop flights on all of these routes except IAH. Therefore, one fails to see what AI hopes to extract by making MUC its biggest hub airport outside of India!
It is more feasible for Air India & Star Alliance to push for a new niche market segment to tap such as my last week's suggestion of making Manchester, UK (MAN) its intermediate hub for USA/Canada bound flights from India. From BOM, DEL & AMD, there is high O&D demand bound for Manchester + a smaller amount from HYD/MAA/BLR/CCU. From MAN, no airline flies to India nonstop + no airline flies nonstop to IAD, LAX, SFO & IAH from MAN thus providing Air India with an unique advantage of having a monopoly position on both India-MAN + MAN-North America flights. Flights via MAN could be routed in the following manner :
BOM-MAN-ORD : daily B 744
DEL-MAN-JFK : daily B 773ER
AMD-MAN-IAH : daily B 773ER
HYD-MAN-LAX : daily B 772ER
BLR-MAN-SFO : daily B 773ER
MAA-MAN-IAD : daily B 773ER
Take into account that Manchester and its surrounding areas have a huge Indian/Sikh population and currently lacks nonstop flights to India. If AI want to take the initiative here, the MAN market is ready for them to exploit.
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