Indian airlines plan flights to top global destinations

These are some of the hottest international destinations and 2.42 million people visit these from India every year. But passengers flying to these 15 – San Francisco, Los Angeles, Milan-Malpensa, Washington-Dulles, Vancouver, Boston, Rome-Fiumicino, Jakarta, Seattle, Lagos, Manila, Tel Aviv, Brisbane, Auckland and Barcelona – are forced to take transit flights from other international hubs in the absence of direct flights from the country.

That is set to change soon, with state-owned Air India (armed with its Dreamliners) and some other leading international airlines negotiating with Delhi International Airport Ltd (DIAL) to operate direct flights to seven of these destinations – Milan-Malpensa, Rome-Fiumicino, Jakarta, Lagos, Manila, Tel Aviv and Barcelona – and cash in on the large untapped market.

So far, flyers from India to the US’ western coast, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and Australia have to transit via other international hubs. According to Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation (Capa), close to 40 per cent of India’s international traffic reaches its final destination via an intermediate offshore airport – almost half of the traffic takes transit flights from West Asian hubs.

The top among these destinations is the US’ western coast (San Francisco, Los Angeles and Seattle), which accounts for a little over 33 per cent of India’s international flyers. Every day, as many as 1,100 people from India travel to these places, taking transit flights from Dubai, London, Singapore, Amsterdam or Hong Kong.

Read the full report here, Business Standard