K.V. Subramanya and Anil Kumar Sastry at the Hindu report that the domestic passenger traffic at Bengaluru International Airport is down. Short-haul domestic air traffic has dropped drastically, and shifted away from the air to surface transport like buses, trains and cars. BIAL is suffering the double blow of a slowdown in the domestic aviation industry which has forced increases in air fares. The new airport's remote location and 1 hour commute only adds to its woes.

The full report :

Passenger traffic, particularly in the domestic sector, at the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) has come down since June.

In the initial days after the opening of the airport, BIA handled around 172 flights a day — international as well as domestic. However, the airport now handles only 162 flights while the domestic traffic has come down by 1.5 per cent, according to sources at the BIA.

The passenger traffic did not pick up at the BIA during late August and September as was seen in other airports in the country. The overall annual growth of passenger volume in the country had dropped by three per cent, the sources said.

However, the trend was not unusual, as according to the global trend, September was a lean season for the aviation industry, the sources claimed. Although there had not been any flight suspensions to or from the BIA because of the fall in traffic volume, there had been some ad hoc or unscheduled cancellations of flights in the past two months due to “operational reasons.”

However, during the winter 2008 schedule, the number of flights would go up to 165 a day, the sources added.

Meanwhile, major airlines have been witnessing decreased load factor on domestic routes, particularly short-haul ones.

While the average load factor had been around 70 per cent, on some routes it was as low as 20 per cent, said a senior official of a private airline. While two private airlines used to operate two flights a day each to Mangalore, they were likely to operate one each, after the flights registered just 20 per cent load factor.

Similar has been the case with many private carriers operating on short-haul routes, namely Hyderabad, Chennai, Coimbatore, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram.

However, the overall positive growth at BIA, despite the fall in domestic air traffic, was due to the increased international flight operations from Bangalore, the sources explained.

In the last four and a half months, six new international air carriers had started operations in Bangalore: Dragon Air, Tiger Airways, Oman Air, Air Mauritius and most recently Indian carriers Kingfisher Airlines and Jet Airways. The total increase in international flights was around 230 per cent as compared to last year’s winter schedule, the sources said.

Beneficiaries

The reduction in number of passengers on short-haul flights has benefited bus operators and the Railways. The load factor on trunk routes had increased substantially since the opening of the BIA.

Anwar Hussain, Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, South Western Railway, Bangalore, said while important trains on trunk routes always used to run packed, the load factor on Shatabdi Express (Mysore-Bangalore-Chennai) had considerably increased. It used to be around 75 to 80 per cent earlier, he added. On the other hand, wait-list on trains on important routes had become lengthy, Mr. Hussain added.

The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) and RTCs of neighbouring States too introduced more buses connecting Bangalore with important destinations in their States. KSRTC Director (Operations) K.S. Rajkumar said the corporation recently signed inter-State agreements with its counterparts.

According to the Press Trust of India, German flag carrier Lufthansa, today said, it will act as a mentor to Indian state carrier Air India to become a member of Star Alliance, a global grouping of top airlines.

"Lufthansa is the mentor for Air India and we will work together to get the latter on board the Star Alliance," the German airlines' South Asia director Werner Heesen said here.

However, Heesen said his company had no plans at present for financial investments in India.

"Financial investments are not on the strategic map of Lufthansa for India," he said when asked about the airlines' plans for South Asia in the wake of the current aviation industry crisis.

He said Lufthansa currently operated 55 flights from seven Indian cities to three destinations in Germany--Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich.

All Lufthansa flights have nearly 60 per cent bookings from travellers of Indian origin, he said. "Indians form about two-thirds of the total passengers on our flights from Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune," Heesen said.

So, Lufthansa was consciously planning its routes to suit Indian travellers. "Also, we are ensuring that Indians get to feel at home by including all types of Indian cuisine, Indian attendants speaking the languages of different regions and in-flight entertainment with local content," he added.

Press Trust of India reports that fair trade practices body Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission (MRTPC), today, ordered a probe into the operational alliance formed between two leading private carriers, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines.

According to highly placed sources, taking a suo moto cognisance based on media reports, the MRTPC ordered its investigative arm, Director General of Investigation and Registration (DGIR) to conduct a preliminary investigation.

In an order the MRTPC asked the DGIR to submit its report within 60 days effective today.

The order comes within days of Jet and Kingfisher announcing formation of an alliance for co-operation in several areas, including joint fuel management, common ground handling and cross-selling of flight inventories.

The alliance has bough together the two airlines which account for nearly 60 per cent of market share. It envisaged sharing of their network and resources to meet the challenge of aviation downturn.

While Jet had earlier acquired ailing Air Sahara, Kingfisher had taken over the crisis-ridden Deccan to emerge stronger till the rising costs and global meltdown hit them hard with each of the entity losing about Rs 10 crore a day.

Announcing the alliance, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal and Kingfisher Airlines chief Vijay Mallya had insisted the alliance had no equity involvement.

As per the alliance, the two airlines were also looking for code-sharing on both domestic and international flights, subject to DGCA approval, cross-utilisation of crew on similar aircraft types and reciprocity in Jet Privilege and King Club frequent flier programmes.