Kochi: World’s largest aviation group Lufthansa has said it has no immediate plans to operate from Cochin international airport but will offer code share and interlining possibilities from Kochi to Bengaluru where it is augmenting international operations focusing on South India.
“We are augmenting our operations from Bangalore and with this, the airline aims to cater to the growing international traffic to Europe,” said George Ettiyil, senior director-sales, South Asia of the Lufthansa Group Airlines.
“While Lufthansa does not fly directly to an airport in Kerala, we have sufficient passengers who either connect with a domestic carrier or even take the road trip from north Kerala to Bangalore airport. Then Bengaluru itself is a very diverse metro where Lufthansa has been reaching out to all Indian ethnicity and different passenger segments,” he added.
“Lufthansa offers code share possibilities with Air India to travel via Bengaluru from any point in India. The airline also has got interlining possibilities with both Air India and Vistara and is exploring more possibilities as other Indian carriers are available on classic sales channels,” said Mr Ettiyil.
Lufthansa has now announced operation of a new five-times weekly flight from Bengaluru to Munich. “The new flight will form a direct connection between India’s Silicon Valley and Europe’s first and only 5-Star airport,” said Mr Ettiyil. The flight will start operating from March 31, 2020.
An interline agreement is a commercial agreement between airlines to handle passengers when they're traveling on multiple airlines on the same itinerary. A code share flight is a flight that is marketed by one carrier and operated by another
Group carriers Lufthansa and SWISS currently offer 58 flights from four Indian gateways, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Bengaluru and Colombo (Sri Lanka), connecting to 343 destinations in more than 100 countries via its European hubs of Frankfurt, Munich and Zurich.
