Indian Airlines Prepares for Touch Down in Melbourne

The decision to fly to Australia is final, with Indian Airlines planning for its first ever wide body, long-haul flight from India to touch down in Melbourne on January 1, 2008 and possibility as early as December 20,” Anil Rodricks, Associate Director, The Walshe Group said after returning from high level briefings with Indian Airlines executives last week.

“We are very excited to have Australia as our first long haul operation launching the induction of the first A330s into our fleet,” said Anita Khurana, Commercial Director, Indian Airlines to Mr Rodricks during his intensive meetings in the Indian capital.

The A330s to be deployed on the five times weekly New Delhi, Singapore, Melbourne service are being refurbished, with two Airbuses currently being fitted out especially for the Australian service in a two class configuration with the 28 business class seats able to recline to a “close to flat” position, he said.

While the leased aircraft are being readied for induction into the Indian Airlines fleet, behind the scenes “we are working full speed on the regulatory process for establishing an on-line presence in Melbourne”, said Mr Rodricks. 

In addition, it’s expected that the new IC flights will be in all major computer reservation systems from next month while a totally separate and branded Indian Airlines office will be functional from October.

“We recognise the early booking trends from the Australian market.  As well, the aim is to establish a strong relationship with the trade by providing top quality infrastructure and competitive pricing,” he said.

Indian Airlines is already looking beyond its initial flight schedule with the “long term view to serve Melbourne on a daily basis and then expand to other Australian cities like Sydney depending upon market conditions”.  There will be a strong offline strategy in Sydney so  passengers have access to a seamless IC product, he added.

Melbourne was selected as Indian Airlines first entry point into Australia because even though it is a smaller market it had the right mix of leisure traffic, business travel and cargo.   In addition, eight of India’s top software firms have headquarters in Melbourne, he said.

Melbourne timings have been optimised for Australian travellers with departures around midnight so that business travellers can have a full working day in Singapore.  After about 1 ½ hours in transit ongoing passengers arrive in New Delhi around 1 PM.  This is ideal for making seamless connections to other centres using Indian Airlines massive domestic network, he said.

Mr Rodricks said that part of the route strategy for Indian Airlines is to create a Singapore hub to service key on-line tourist and business destinations like Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata and to also tap into a strong cargo market in both directions. 

The outgoing flight from Melbourne to Singapore, in fact, has been timed so that passengers can within a maximum of two hours connect with IC flights to these four key centres.  There are daily or double daily flights to these four cities ex Singapore so in effect Melbourne will have easy access to five major destinations in India, said Mr Rodricks.

“IC will work closely with India Tourism to promote Australian leisure traffic into India and also with the Australia India Business Council, the leading commercial representative, to grow two-way trade between Australia and India,” he said.

On the leisure side, IC will have a major launch of its popular “Flyaways” holiday packages.  “Specially designed for the FIT market and backed by unique web technology, packages in India and Australia will be available for everything from comprehensive tour packages to stopovers,” he said.

Meanwhile the plan to merge Indian Airlines and Air-India has accelerated with the new as yet unnamed mega airline expected to be unveiled in July.

“When it’s considered that Indian Airlines – currently on a fleet renewal and expansion plan that will see 43 new aircraft inducted into the fleet beginning this month – is joining forces with Air India’s vast network, the new mega airline will really be a force to be reckoned with.  The combined network will allow us to regain market share,” said Mr Rodricks.  

Exclusive Report by Thomas E. King, TravelMole’s Travel & Lifestyle Editor