British Airways wants to expand, looking for opportunities in India

New Delhi: British Airways has been flying into India for the last 90 years, which means for as long as the airline itself has existed. In these nine decades, BA has gained good insights into the Indian market and is looking to expand here further. How and when, depends on the growth the Indian economy and tourist sectors post in the next few years.

Speaking to Firstbiz, executive chairman Keith Williams said he was very keen to see flights and passengers from India grow on the BA network. It is pertinent that BA is talking of expansion in India now for several reasons:

* India is the second largest international market for the BA network outside of USA.

* India is one of the few markets where economic growth looks promising in the near future.

* India is under penetrated since only about 3 percent of its population flies. Also, large global airlines like Virgin Atlantic and now Delta have withdrawn services from key cities like Mumbai.

* Middles eastern carriers are already getting aggressive here and the European ones had better gird up their loins.
Williams’ visit coincides with a flurry of visits by heads of other global businesses to India in the last few months.

Everyone wants to see whether Prime Minister’s Modi’s promises on growth will translate into something concrete.

“This government has been in office for six months and I see a lot of promise in the Indian economy. India is again open for business. Now we want to see how that translated into good business for us in terms of aviation and tourism sectors,” Williams said.

BA has a interesting ways of expanding businesses into other countries - in Japan it has tie-up with JAL and in the US with American Airways. In the US, BA and American do joint marketing, selling and scheduling but Williams says there are no plans to enter into any similar arrangement with an Indian airline as of now. Neither is any investment in an Indian carrier on the horizon just yet though FDI rules now permit up to 49 percent equity investment by a foreign airline in an Indian one.

BA flies to five destinations in India with 49 weekly frequencies and though the bilateral air services agreement between the UK and India allows for more frequencies to be added, BA is playing the wait and watch game for now.