Summary
- Lufthansa is experiencing strong demand in India and is taking capability off other routes to fulfill it.
- India’s aviation market is complex, with quite a few domestic players and international carriers like Lufthansa.
- Lufthansa plans to bring back the A380 to Delhi
- India is facing each strong demand and post-COVID recovery.
Having just launched services between Frankfurt and Hyderabad, Lufthansa’s growth in India is seemingly constant. Such is true to the purpose that Chief Business Officer Heiko Reitz told Reuters on Thursday that Lufthansa was having to take capability off of other routes in an effort to satisfy demand in India.
India – certainly one of the world’s most populous countries – is aware of a really dense and complicated aviation market. Players on the domestic scene are quite a few. Air India, IndiGo and SpiceJet are but some examples of airlines that provide regular services on countless routes connecting virtually every point in India. On the long-haul side, nevertheless, the situation looks barely different.
While there are fewer Indian airlines operating long-haul services, the international carriers make up for it. Lufthansa has positioned itself as a strong rival, offering competitive connecting options to India for passengers, particularly those originating in Europe.
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India’s capability exceeds pre-COVID levels
Lufthansa’s Chief Business Officer Heiko Reitz told Reuters that the airline’s capability on services to India is up 14% from pre-COVID levels. This comes as recovery continues to be in process in a lot of its other markets. He said:
“India is growing faster than the remaining of our other destinations. We’re taking our capability from other markets and putting it into India.”
The Asia-Pacific region is indeed recovering particularly fast post-COVID. As reported by Easy Flying earlier this week, the region saw essentially the most growth in November 2023 with a year-on-year rise in traffic of about 64%.
Photo: PJSAero | Shutterstock
Overall, the Lufthansa Group operates 64 weekly flights to India at present, which is a rise of 8 weekly services compared to 2019. Flights to India are offered by Lufthansa and SWISS. Lufthansa Group member airlines Brussels Airlines and Austrian Airlines each previously offered flights to India from their respective hubs in Brussels and Vienna but later suspended them faced with business constraints, largely related to the complexity of operating to India. Normally, a robust connecting network each in India and on the routes’ origin is crucial for its success.
Lufthansa bringing back the A380 to India
This upcoming summer, Lufthansa might be reintroducing the Airbus A380 on services to Delhi. This comes after the airline recently celebrated 60 years of operating to the Indian capital. Elise Becker, Vice-President Asia-Pacific on the Lufthansa Group said:
It’s price noting that the airline also plans to regulate its operation between Frankfurt and Mumbai. Currently, the service operates day by day with an Airbus A340-300 aircraft. As of 31 March 2024, the connection might be serviced by a Boeing 787-9 until 4 June 2024. From then on, a Boeing 747-400 will operate the route until 1 August 2024, when the Airbus A340-300 might be reintroduced.
Expansion elsewhere in India
Earlier this week, Lufthansa relaunched services between Frankfurt and Hyderabad after a 13-year hiatus, having suspended the route in 2011. The airline will operate the service using a Boeing 787-9 aircraft five times every week on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
Photo: Lukas Wunderlich | Shutterstock
The services see a morning departure from Frankfurt and a late evening arrival in Hyderabad. The return flight will depart at 01:55 local time from Hyderabad and can touchdown in Frankfurt at 07:05. George Ettiyil, Senior Director South Asia on the Lufthansa Group said:
“With our latest Hyderabad-Frankfurt service we now offer Indian passengers 64 weekly flights to our hubs in Europe and onward connections to the largest network on the European continent.”
This brings Lufthansa’s total variety of routes between Germany and India to 6, having also recently launched a connection between Munich to Bangalore in November 2023. Ettiyil added:
“With Bangalore-Munich and now Hyderabad-Frankfurt services, we now have launched two latest routes previously three months, recognizing South India’s growing relevance and demonstrating the strong overall importance of India to the Lufthansa Group.”
The Bangalore service is operated with an Airbus A350-900 thrice every week.
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This winter, Lufthansa also maintained its day by day service between Frankfurt and Chennai with an Airbus A340-300, despite initially planning to scale back it to five weekly.
India is
India has been growing rapidly in recent times, becoming a preferred and profitable aviation market. Growing passenger numbers and infrastructure development country-wide have furthered India’s attractiveness to airlines. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) Director General, Willie Walsh, commented on this growth just last month:
“I feel India is the marketplace for the long run. I might be very optimistic about its growth. Potential growth in India goes to make it a really exciting market.
Photo: Vincenzo Pace | Easy Flying
In accordance with a report by McKinsey & Company, India’s travel industry is about to proceed growing rapidly over the following decade. The report underlined India’s recent growth, noting that it had a “strong postpandemic recovery”. The report reads:
“Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, India’s outbound tourist market was among the many fastest-growing markets in Asia. India has already recovered 61 percent of its prepandemic market, with 13 million outbound tourists in 2022. This represents a much quicker recovery than most Asian countries.”
This report also analyzed key tendencies amongst Indian travelers and their selections of destination. Travelers from North India, the report states, Within the South, primarily within the state of Kerala, travelers are inclined to book flights to the Middle East greater than anything.
Generally speaking, the Indian aviation market is about to soar. McKinsey & Company compared the market to that of China’s. The authors stated that if India follows the identical outbound travel trajectory that China followed previously – which they argue is probable given similar demographics when it comes to population size and per capita income trajectory – travel from India will skyrocket. Specifically, India’s outbound travel would reach nearly 80 to 90 million trips by 2024. It’s price noting that currently this segment constitutes just 13 million people as of 2022, while for China this figure stands at 104 million people.