By IANS
New Delhi : Aeroflot, Russia’s flagship carrier, Tuesday said it plans to expand its operations in India and is mulling a direct flight from Moscow to Amritsar in Punjab. It also hopes to increase the frequency of its Moscow-Mumbai tri-weekly flights to daily.
“We are hopeful of support from the Indian government. We look at India as a fast growing market in the aviation sector,” Valery M. Okulov, chairman and CEO of Aeroflot, told reporters here.
Aeroflot officials are in Delhi as part of the delegation accompanying visiting Russian Prime Minister Victor Zubkov.
Aeroflot has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Kingfisher Airlines on sharing arrangements with regard to passengers and commercial cooperation.
Officials said that passengers of both airlines flying on the India-Russia route would benefit from the MoU.
“Passengers travelling on this route will have better access if they use Kingfisher and Aeroflot. They would face less hassles. There would be direct coordination between the two airlines, besides better connectivity,” said Siva Ramchandran, vice-president of Kingfisher Airlines.
Ramchandran said Kingfisher may go ahead with other expansion plans with Aeroflot if the present MoU is successful. He indicated that the airlines may even fly to other Russian destinations later.
“But right now, we don’t have such plans. As of now, we would like to work in tandem with Aeroflot,” he said.
Kingfisher has similar arrangements with 15 foreign airlines including Continental, Delta and North-West.