Lufthansa may commence all-business class service on Pune-Frankfurt route by July
21 Apr 2008
New Delhi: Lufthansa Airlines may soon commence an all-business class direct flight on the Pune-Frankfurt route before July this year. The carrier had, so far, been awaiting sanction from the country's aviation regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). With the regulator's approval in hand Lufthansa will now try and make the route operational before July 2008.
The German flag carrier has received permission to operate six weekly flights on the Pune – Frankfurt route.
Lufthansa officials would appear to be mulling an all-Business Class flight, with a seating capacity of not more than 60 passengers. If this goes into operation, Lufthansa would become the second international carrier to offer an all-business class flight to India, after Japanese carrier, ANA.
Lufthansa says that Pune was India's next emerging IT hub, after Bangalore, and provided ample business traffic to Germany.
Lufthansa is expanding its route network considerably in the 2008 summer timetable with 15 new destinations, taking the total to 204 destinations in 81 countries. It is also boosting seating capacity on its entire network by 7.4 per cent, as compared to last year.
In India, the airline is also mulling plans to induct larger aircraft following a major rise in demand on its Kolkata-Frankfurt and Delhi-Munich services.
A leading member of the global airline grouping, Star Alliance, Lufthansa now operates daily non-stop flights on the Delhi-Frankfurt, Delhi-Munich routes and daily services from Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad to Frankfurt. It also has a thrice weekly Kolkata-Frankfurt flight.