Ia Plans Base In Bangalore For International Operations

Indian Airlines (IA) is planning to set up a major base in Bangalore for its international operations. To begin with, the airline will commence direct Bangalore-Singapore flights thrice a week from April 1.

The airline is also making arrangements for parking one of its A-320 aircraft at the airport to service its international operations. Simultaneously, the national carrier will also operate a direct flight between Calcutta and Singapore thrice a week.

IAs plan to set up a base in Bangalore was formulated after a market survey conducted by the airline indicated that the citys passenger and cargo traffic was much higher than that of Madras, which is IAs parent base.

The airline operates 28 flights daily to 17 international destinations. The flights carry 2,800 passengers every day. These international operations contribute nearly one-fourth of the airlines total revenue, while the capacity deployed is a mere 18.7 per cent.

The airlines foreign exchange earnings for January amounted to Rs 97.4 crore, the highest in the current financial year. The national carriers foreign exchange earnings were Rs 735.85 crore for the first 10 months of 1996-97.

The airline is expected to break even for 1996-97 after recording a net profit of Rs 2.05 crore in November and Rs 8.3 crore in December 1996. These two results marked the first time that the airline made a net profit in the current financial year.

While the airline carried a total of 4.5 million passengers between April and October 1996, it is expected to carry the same number of passengers within the next five months.

Last year, the airline carried a total of about 7.7 million passengers. The projected increase this year is largely due to the higher marketshare earned by Indian Airlines in the interim period.