Delta Airlines adds Chennai to its route map

Chennai: Around 140 passengers from Chennai boarded Delta Airlines' inaugural Chennai-Paris-New York flight on May 11, 2005, as the world's second largest airline added Chennai to its daily route map. Mumbai is the other Indian city from where Delta operates a daily flight to the US. Incidentally Delta is the only carrier to provide direct flights to New York from Chennai.

According to Rodney D'Cruz, sales manager-India, Delta Airlines, the inaugural flight had around 70 per cent occupancy.

Asked about impending competition with other airlines, since the number of daily flights from South Indian cities to the US were likely to increase to over 25 in the near future, he said, "We don''t expect any fare war in the near future. Our rates are competitive." Air France has also started its service to US from Bangalore recently.

When asked about Delta's future plans in India, Paulette Corbin, senior vice president in-flight service, said, "We will first exhaust the potential of the existing routes by adding additional flights before looking at other Indian cities." According to her, the only constraint to serving other destinations in India was adequate availability of aircrafts.

Loren Neuenschwander, managing director, Atlantic region, the airline has recruited around 80 flight attendants in Chennai to service the Chennai-Paris-New York route. Passengers can enjoy localised menus such as channa dal, chicken Nilgiri korma and kesari saffron rice. On board entertainment includes two Tamil films and 12 language newspapers and magazines.