Air France favours stronger ties with A-I

Air France on Wednesday said it wants to upgrade its codeshare arrangement with Air-India in the face of heightened competition on Indian destinations from British Airways and Lufthansa and announced daily services between Mumbai and Paris from next summer.

The French airline is looking at launching flights from new sectors in south India like Chennai and Bangalore and is eagerly looking forward to the discussions on Indo-French bilateral air services agreement next month, its Director General (Asia-Pacific) Jean Louis Pinson told reporters here.

Air France would operate Airbus A-340 on the Mumbai-Paris route on a three-class configuration and introduce a Boeing B-747 on the Delhi-Paris daily flight with a separate and spacious flat-bed Business Class.

Pinson said the carrier would not operate extra-section flights during the limited 'open sky' period this winter as it could not deploy additional capacity at a short notice. But it would strive to use the bilateral rights of the KLM which has now merged with it.

Pinson, however, said the airline wants a permanent arrangement with Air India to work out a better codeshare and enhance the number of flights between the two countries. It would also like to work out agreements with other Indian carriers.

"We have asked our civil aviation authorities to work out increased landing rights for Air India. We want to balance the situation in favour of France," especially after enhanced bilateral rights it has got from the UK and Germany, he said.