The Hindu Business Line : Air France keen on tie-up with Air India

The interest of the international airline to tie up with Air India was conveyed to the airline top brass during the interactions that Air India Chairman and Managing Director, Mr Thulasidas, had with senior Air France officials in Paris recently.

"If the tie-up benefits both the airline, what is wrong in going in for it? If the tie-up leads to more flights into and through Paris, it would be beneficial to the airline," Mr Thulasidas said. The Air France move comes close on the heels of Air India signing a strategic alliance agreement with the German airline, Lufthansa in August this year.

The agreement is likely to aid the two airlines in significantly improving their market leadership positions on India-Europe-US routes.

According to it, all flights between the two countries will be operated by the two airlines in future on a code-sharing basis and new routes will also be added. Meanwhile, Air India's immediate plan is to operate more flights to London partly because of the recently concluded air services bilateral agreement between India and the UK.

"Air India is examining the option of launching more flights to the UK. Besides, we are also looking at launching a night flight from London which would allow passengers to spend the entire day in UK and be in India by afternoon," Mr Thulasidas said. The airline's plans to lease aircraft for not only launching flights to more destinations but increasing frequency of services to existing destinations is moving at a rapid pace. Senior airline officials said that negotiations are likely to be concluded in the next few weeks for the lease of some aircraft.