Lufthansa increases Kolkata-Frankfurt services to five a week

Kolkata: Starting 3 June, Europe's second largest airline, Lufthansa, will increase the number of flights between Kolkata and Frankfurt from three to five a week. The new flights will take off from Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at 12.55am on Wednesdays and Sundays and reach Frankfurt at 7.25am local time.

The airline's director for south Asia, Werner Heesen, said Monday that Kolkata was ''increasingly gaining in importance as a strategic growth market'' and that this was reflected in the demand for tickets.

''Lufthansa has steadily expanded its flight calendar to the country in recent years… We are monitoring Calcutta's market very closely and have plans to introduce daily flights from the city soon,'' Heesen said.

According to Heesen, business travellers account for 60 per cent of Lufthansa's passenger traffic to and from Kolkata.

With the addition of these two flights, Lufthansa is now operating 50 flights a week from seven destinations in the country. The increase has been made possible by an air traffic agreement signed by India and Germany in April this year.