According to the senior executives, the European airline giant Air France-KLM is eager to grow its codeshare flights with IndiGo and expand routes and capacity into the “booming” Indian airline sector. Air France-KLM now connects four Indian cities—Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chennai—on up to 46 flights per week, a 22% increase in seat capacity from 2022. Additionally, for over 30 cities, it has a codeshare arrangement with IndiGo, the top airline in the nation.
A significant factor in global air travel is Air France-KLM. According to the group’s website, Air France, Transavia, and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines fly to approximately 300 destinations as part of its global network.
“We want to increase our capacity and route network. With IndiGo, we wish to develop. The objective is to run more foreign flights”, according to Claude Sarre, general manager of Air France-KLM’s India operation. The ‘premium luxury class’ was made available earlier this week by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines on flights between several Indian cities & Amsterdam.
The Indian subcontinent’s director of marketing for Air France-KLM, Christiaan van de Kopple, claims that consumers are growing increasingly demanding of quality and are willing to pay more for it.
Flying under a codeshare agreement enables one airline to advertise flights run by another. The arrangement gives travellers access to a wider variety of locations. Even if a different airline operates, the ticket is going to be granted with the routing number of the carrier selected at the time of purchase.
For instance, A traveller coming from Amsterdam or France to Chennai or Bengaluru would have the option to keep traveling on an IndiGo flight to a different nation in the sub-continent, such as Colombo in Sri Lanka if the present plans to expand codeshare were to be successful.
For the current codeshare to operate well and to establish desirable international connections with the least amount of transit time, the European airline group is simultaneously working with IndiGo to synchronize its administrative and information technology operations.
It is interesting to note that Pieter Elbers had been the president of KLM at the time the codeshare agreement between Air France-KLM and IndiGo was inked. Elbers embraced IndiGo as chief executive in September 2022 and has since developed a reputation as a major thinker in the company’s European expansion strategy. “Since there has been a great deal of IT development, we first want to solidify the work that we are accomplishing with IndiGo”, according to Sarre.
In anticipation of the impending summer travel season, Air France, which has an international hub in Paris, and KLM, which has a hub in Amsterdam, anticipate easier operations and shorter lines at their respective airports for passengers traveling out of these airports. The prospects for India are still positive. Air India, which most recently placed a purchase order for 470 planes, including 70 wide-body aircraft and 400 narrow-body aircraft, is another airline that is keeping an eye out as it expands.
It is not the primary time Air France-KLM has looked into forming a significant alliance with an Indian carrier. Air France-KLM is currently concentrating on growing its relationship with IndiGo and does not have any intentions to increase connections with other carriers. With Vistara, Air France-KLM successfully has an interline agreement in place.
