Emirates Mulls Air-India Bid After Being Offered Reins

Emirates Airlines has been yet again invited to bid for a stake in Air-India. The airline major is strongly considering the option this time around due to a strong incentive.

A civil aviation ministry official who has sounded this proposal has apparently offered management control in Air-India to Emirates Airlines.

Maurice Flanagan, group managing director, said here on Saturday, "We have been invited to have a nibble at it." He declined to give details on the proposal and how they were planning to go about it.

At present, two groups - the Tata Singapore consortium and the Hinduja group -- have already completed their due diligence and would be now submitting their technical bids for the Air India divestment.

Flanagan also admitted that they were unhappy with the number of seats allowed to the airlines in India. "Our growth in India has been restrained by the number of seats allowed to us in India. There is a heavy demand in South India, especially in Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram but at the moment we cannot do anything about it." Flanagan said.

Emirates, which will start its services eight-times-weekly between Dubai and Hyderabad from next month, currently has 8,800 seat capacities in India. "We would be happy with a 10,000 to 11,000 seat capacity," Flanagan said.

Flanagan has evinced interest in the handling the ground staff management for the Hyderabad airport through their ground handling company Dnata. "That's our strength, we are definitely looking at it," said Flanagan. The new airport at Bangalore has also caught the eye of Emirates, and it is looking at offering it services here too.

The airline is also negotiation to gain ground management control in Beirut. Reacting to recent media reports on ex Pakistani army officials working in Dnata, their cargo handling operations, Flanagan flatly denied it.

Emirates employs 6000 Indian employees and 1,800 Pakistani employees of their total staff strength of 15,000 in Dnata.

Emirates has recently increased its stake in Air Lanka by 3.7 per cent from its earlier 40 per cent. Flanagan said that they were happy with the airlines as they have the management control in the Lankan airlines.

Emirate would be growing at a 12 per cent every year in terms of air traffic as against the global trend of 5 per cent. We are looking at growing to 50 million by 2015 as against the present 13 million, Flanagan said.