Modiluft Ties Up With Malaysian Airlines

ModiLuft will continue to retain the Luft suffix after the tie-up with MA. Luft was earlier added to Modi to indicate its partnership with Lufthansa. Sources said the Indian partner will pay an amount to MA for its services which will be at least one third less than what was paid to Lufthansa for the same services.

The deal will cost ModiLuft in the region of Rs 25 lakh a month, according to sources.

ModiLuft is expected to lease two planes in the Boeing 737-400 class from MA in the next one year and replace the Lufthansa aircraft after their lease expires. MA maintains a very young fleet and either sells aircraft beyond five years or leases them out. ModiLuft has six aircraft now and is not able to fly its full schedule due to technical problems.

 

The ModiLuft-MA agreement will later be expanded into a commercial alliance like joint marketing, code sharing, frequent flyer programme and the like.

Sources said MA has long been wanting an Indian partner as it looks at India as a very important market. At present, it flies out of Madras and Delhi and would want to source ModiLufts India connections to ferry passengers to south-east Asia.

The proximity of Malaysia to India would lead to better operational efficiency of the alliance, as MA technicians can fly down in a short time to attend to any problem. A later improvement on the alliance could be a maintenance centre in South India.

MA is talking to the Karnataka government to set up a Boeing 737 maintenance base near Mysore. After yesterdays alliance, this could be a joint venture between the two carriers.