Air France aims to become big in India

Air France aims to become big in India

Air France has been present in the Indian market for more than 50 years. The company now aims to become one of the major international airline operators in the country.

Kapil Kaul, CEO (Indian sub-continent and Middle East), Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation spoke about the market: “Though the domestic passenger numbers are likely to see a dip of 15 per cent in the second quarter of this fiscal, the outbound market from India still has a modest double- digit growth and the current number of outbound travelers of 30 million passengers will be 120 million by 2020. Therefore India is a significant market with Indian traveler recognized worldwide.”

The French airline company is considering deploying Airbus A380 in India for worldwide flights.

Jean-Louis Pinson, senior vice-president, International and the Netherlands division, Air France spoke about Indian plans: “India is a destination where we would look at deploying our A380s as and when the airport infrastructure at the Mumbai and Delhi airports supports the aircraft. That would also mean we will have to renegotiate with the Indian government our rights portfolio.”

He added: “We want Air France to be a preferred European airline for the Indian passenger and we are looking at a long-term investment in this market as the market has strong growth potential.”