Virgin Atlantic wants to invest in Indian airlines

But Branson won't invest in personal capacity; will wait for policy change

BY A CORRESPONDENT
May 11, 2006

More Virgin flights to India

Virgin is planning to increase flights to India. Virgin Atlantic already has daily flights in the Delhi/Mumbai-London sector. This will be hiked to double daily flights, though no date has been set for the launch. Also, Virgin is planning to start flying to South Indian cities, possibly Chennai and Bangalore. Virgin today unveiled upper class suite for India, which offer comfortable reclining leather seats, which can be stretched to a fully flat bed. Virgin is expecting a 15-20 per cent passenger increase in the upper first class. The upper class suite will be available on Virgin's Boeing 747-400, Airbus A 340-600 and A 340-300 aircraft.

Virgin Atlantic is keen on picking up stake in Indian carriers. India does not allow foreign carriers to buy into Indian airlines, but individuals are free to do so. Still Sir Richard Branson, chairman of the Virgin Gorup is not interested in such a personal investment. According to Virgin's India GM Joe Thompson, Virgin will wait till such time the policy changes to favour foreign carriers.

Early last year, Branson had held talks with Air Deccan MD Captain GR Gopinath to acquire a stake in the Indian low-budget airline. However, talks did not make headway because of policy bottlenecks.

Recently, India's civil aviation minister Praful Patel had hinted in an interview that foreign carriers may be allowed to invest in Indian airlines, though not very soon.

Said Thompson: "India is absolutely a key market. We are doing 70 per cent load factor and our new product will further increase sales.

"The Virgin group is interested in investing airlines across the globe. In India, aviation sector is booming and we are definitely looking at investing in India," he added. Virgin is keen on acquiring stakes in low-cost airlines in India, which include Air Deccan, GoAir and SpiceJet.

"But nothing has been decided... What I can say is that the market in India is definitely interesting and the conditions are so good for investment," Thompson added. According to Virgin, the policy of not allowing foreign airlines to invest in India is a setback for those like Virgin.