Bmi and Virgin break BA stranglehold on India routes

Friday, 06 Dec, 2004 0

Bmi and Virgin Atlantic have been granted permission to break British Airways’ monopoly on UK-India routes.

Following a two-day hearing by the Civil Aviation Authority last month Bmi has been allowed to operate four services to Mumbai and Virgin seven to Delhi and three to Mumbai.

BA is granted seven extra services, four to Chennai and three to Bangalore, giving it a total of 26. The airline had requested 21 extra frequencies.

BA now runs all 19 services a week available to UK airlines under the terms of a previous air services agreement between the two countries.

The airline said it “may well” argue the case for more capacity to India while admitting to being “disappointed” at not receiving more flights.

Chief executive Rod Eddington said: “While we look forward to increasing flights to Chennai and starting new services to Bangalore, we would like to operate more flights to India.

“The CAA’s remit was to award the frequencies to the airline that could bring maximum benefits to consumers and the UK economy. We believe that we were best placed to do that.”

The new frequencies, which become available in three tranches from this winter, were secured under the latest bilateral agreement between the UK and India, signed in September.

Virgin is expected to start its seven services a week this winter, with Bmi launching next summer and BA operating its additional flights from winter 2005-06. BA said it planned to start Bangalore flights next summer.

Virgin had been operating three flights a week to Delhi under a commercial agreement with Air India which expired on November 30.

Report by Phil Davies

Phil Davies

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