Domestic airlines reach for global skies

Mumbai: By 2009, Jet Airways expects half of its total revenue to come from international operations. The carrier has aircraft worth over $4bn on order, to see that this happens.
Jet is not the only domestic carrier nursing international dreams — a host of domestic airlines led by the national Indian, Kingfisher and Air Deccan are busy ordering aircraft worth billions of dollars as well as detailing plans for their international forays.
Most airlines are losing money on their current operations and hope that the international flights will help funnel passengers into their domestic network. Margins can also be higher on some routes
Air Deccan, which has spent much of 2006 expanding its network all over India is keen to fly to international destinations in the region.
Jet Airways and Indian are already international operators with plans to significantly increase their network this year.
A commercial team has already gone to Europe to study the feasibility of flights to the Continent — so far the preserve of Air-India.
03/01/06 Cuckoo Paul/Economic Times

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