As Jet Airways gets ready to shift its operations to Amsterdam from Brussels from March 27, Gaurang Shetty, Wholetime Director, Jet Airways met with select mediapersons to explain its partnership with KLM and Delta and enhancing connectivity between India, Europe and North America.

Edited excerpts:

When the airline launched the Brussels hub there was talk of connecting several destinations in India to the world. What kind of a footprint will you be creating with gateway Amsterdam?

Whenever we operate to any destination one of the key things is how do you feed traffic into the region? Let me give you an example. We operate into Singapore, which is an important feed say for Australia or for the Asia market.

So whenever you go into any destination in addition to building traffic between end points how do you take it beyond end points?

Brussels has its own strength in terms of where it comes from. When we started in 2008 we had aspirations to service Europe. And I think Brussels Airline had a role to play in it. Obviously, Brussels Airline has its own aspirations to grow. We have to look at it from a commercial perspective and say what makes more commercial sense in terms in trying to extricate maximum value for the route that we operate. That is where we saw Amsterdam delivering significant commercial value, both in terms of connectivity in Europe and the US, also in terms of a bottomline perspective for both passenger and cargo.

Cargo is a very important aspect of our business as well. When you look at the mix of everything on the table, it is a stronger proposition than what Brussels offers.

It is not about moving from one to another it is all about delivering greater value.

You have another gateway in Abu Dhabi. How do gateway Abu Dhabi and Amsterdam mesh in?

Customers want choice. So our job is to offer choice. Customers in addition to flying direct also fly indirect. The same European customer I would feed him over London on my service, Paris and Amsterdam.

Whether it is over Abu Dhabi with Etihad, whether Qantas over Singapore, I work with partners. This airline has always grown bilaterally. We work with all the airlines across all three alliances. I have partners in OneWorld, Star and Skyteam.

It is not about conflict, it is about choice.

How much will it help in increasing your international footprint?

KLM and Delta are significant players in the US, Canada and Europe. Very clearly there is an added advantage in terms of the footprint that they deliver. The US is a large country and when you are able to operate into 11 cities direct and are able to do code-share into 30 points in Europe, when customers in those location can do code-share into India ….. we do code-share for KLM and Delta within India.

Was the labour issue one of the reasons for shifting from Brussels?

No. It is commercial business thinking.

Let us take it from an Indian consumer’s point of view. From my perspective, our hubs in India are Mumbai and Delhi.

I have the maximum connectivity in Mumbai and Delhi. Today, I am one of the largest players transferring customers and now with T2 in Mumbai integrated, we will be funnelling more and more customers between our networks.

We built our networks in Mumbai and Delhi as we are an Indian carrier. Our hubs are Mumbai and Delhi.

When it comes to an external point, that becomes our gateway because that is our gateway to disparate customers, while Mumbai and Delhi are the core hub.

So Mumbai and Delhi will become the hubs ...

Yeah. I am here for the Indian consumer. My job is to provide direct and indirect services.

How does this fit in with Etihad which has an investment in Air Berlin, which is close to Amsterdam and Alitalia, which is also close to Amsterdam?

Our partnership with Etihad is a very strong one. We work closely across all synergy areas. In fact, today, between Jet and Etihad we are one of the largest players out-bound from India. One out of every five customers going out is flying between the two of us.

The partnership that they have with other carriers that they have invested in is purely that they are growing together with those partners.

I think as far as we are concerned we will always look at it from the Indian consumer’s point of view.

Given how big an airport Amsterdam’s Schiphol is, do you see the need to order more wide-body aircraft?

It is too premature to talk about it when we have not started our services. But if I were to look at forward loads on the Amsterdam service, it is very confident and strong. What is going to happen in the future ...

The forward loads may require you to acquire more wide-body aircraft.

It is too premature. The Indian market is a late booking market.

Do you plan to induct more aircraft into your fleet?

I think the next induction will be the 787-9 sometime in 2017.

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