Air India is planning to operate direct flights from Southern India to New York and Chicago, via Frankfurt and Paris, to boost the west bound traffic from the region, a senior AI official has said.

"To cater to the needs of the west bound traffic from south India, Air India is planning to operate direct flights to New York and Chicago, via Frankfurt and Paris, as soon as more aircraft joined the fleet mid-next year," Air India's regional director (India) Capt P P Singh said.

"Next year AI Express, the budget wing of the carrier, also planned to operate to Singapore-Kuala Lumpur," he said.

On the Centre's move to insist on six months notice to pilots before quitting the job, Singh said: "It will not only ensure that there was no sudden displacement, but also make other airlines think."

Regarding operations, he said there was excellent response to the recent introduction of a Boeing 747 flight on the Chennai-Mumbai-Los Angeles sector.

Dispelling the belief of lack of coordination between AI and Indian Airlines, he said: "AI has good synergy with IA and we are rationalising the routes for better capacity usage."

About private carriers' operations to foreign countries, Singh said private airlines did take away some share but passenger numbers was growing. "Our market share has gone up to 21 per cent in 2004-05 from the previous 19 per cent and south contributed 30 p c of total revenue," he said.

AI's commercial manager (Tamil Nadu) P S Rajagopal, said Tamil Nadu accounted for nearly 11 per cent of the overall growth of the national carrier. "AI's growth on west bound sector as far as Tamil Nadu is concerned, is growing substantially, especially to New Jersey and Chicago," he said.