The Indian sky appears to have caught international carriers' fancy. Qatar Airways today announced that it will add nine additional flights to India per week with immediate effect.

The airline would now operate daily flights out of Doha to Mumbai, Kochi, Hyderabad & Thiruvananthapuram. The airline would now offer 28 flights per week to four destinations in India.

German airline Lufthansa also announced that it would be adding 4 seasonal flights between Bangalore and Frankfurt under the government's decision on open sky policy for the period starting January 6 to February 29.

With this capacity addition Lufthansa's weekly services to India stand increased to 28 flights.

While Singapore Airlines recently announced a capacity addition of around 11 per cent on the India-Singapore sector, Air Canada decided to re-start its operations to India. National carrier Air-India also announced its capacity addition on the west bound destinations.

Akbar Al Baker, chief executive officer of Qatar Airways said, "These additional flights will allow us to increase our service levels to the large Indian expatriate community that resides in the Gulf, particularly during this busy holiday season."

In the case of Kochi and Hyderabad, the airline has increased the number of flights per week from three to seven while for Mumbai, it has added one extra flight per week, to make it daily.

Werner Heesen, general manager passenger sales India and director South Asia said in a press release, "South India is consolidating as an important destination on Lufthansa's network and the increase in flights from this region underline the existing growth potential. The decision to add frequency is in line with the strong demand for flights between India and Germany."

Lufthansa to add 4 more flights

Lufthansa on Wednesday announced that it will add four more flights to/from Bangalore-Frankfurt, in addition to the three existing flights in this route.

These additional flights will be under the Government of India's Open Sky Policy for the period starting January 6-February 29, 2004.

With the addition of these four weekly flights, Lufthansa will offer a total of 28 weekly flights from/to India, providing extra capacity to meet the increasing air traffic demand during peak season especially to/from south India.