The French connection

Charles de Gaulle airport has enabled Air France to consolidate its market share, says T.S. SHANKAR.

AS the Air France Airbus-A340 from New Delhi prepares to land at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, its passengers can look forward to convenient connections to over 100 destinations in Europe. Fast emerging as Europe's largest hub, it provides 11,300 connections a week with a minimum connecting time of less than two hours.

When compared to the other European gateways - Frankfurt, Amsterdam, and Heathrow - Charles de Gaulle is one of the area's few airports that has still room for expansion. It is now poised to handle at least 120 take-offs and landings per hour.

The opening of Halls F and E in 2003 will increase the airport's handling capacity by over 2.5 per cent.

Air France is able to offer over 11,300 connections a week, both ways, between the medium and long-haul network, which is more than Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Heathrow put together, say airport authorities.

The fact that the airline has chosen to build its hub at the main airport of the Ile-de-France region, an economically important and popular tourist area, has enabled it to develop a powerful point-to-point market.

Serving less-travelled routes where it does not have appropriate resources of its own, under its own colours, feeding traffic to hubs, notably Charles de Gaulle, connecting passengers from partner airlines and leveraging the responsiveness of these airlines to meet market demand on a competitive basis are the French airline's buzzwords.

Looking at Air France's position globally, the signing of a 10- year agreement in June 1999 with Delta Airlines has enabled the two airlines to base their development on Charles de Gaulle and Atlanta (U.S.), the world's largest hub. The prospects of the French hub was a factor in Delta's decision. As for Air France, it chose the most well-established American airline on the east coast of the United States, where most of the European traffic is concentrated.

Together, the airlines already have 17 per cent of the market share on transatlantic routes - as much as Lufthansa and United Airlines put together. Synchronising Paris and Atlanta will enable the French airline and Delta to consolidate their position in the world's largest air transport market (Europe/U.S.), where 54 per cent of the world's air traffic is concentrated.

Apart from the carrier's increasing global presence - thanks to the "Sky Team" alliance - its interest in Indian points has not dwindled either. Besides daily operations to Mumbai and New Delhi, it is poised to spread its wings - either to Bangalore or Chennai.

"Our performance in Asia is satisfactory. Asian destinations are becoming increasingly popular with European travellers, which together with the recovery of the Asian economy, has resulted in substantial growth for us," say airline sources.

Over the past year, Air France has concentrated its resources on increasing capacity to high potential markets, by adding more flights to China and India. It has added one more flight to Seoul in January this year".

Focussing on Asia has also attracted more passengers who now benefit from a variety of Asia-specific services, including welcome agents based at Charles de Gaulle airport to greet and facilitate Asian passengers.

Executive Vice-President and Managing Director, Asia Pacific Region, Air France, Mr. Marie Joseph Male, explains that there has been a steady growth in South East Asia, and India in particular. Stating that its pilots' participation played a role in the turnaround strategy, he says, "we were one of the few airlines not to reduce our presence in Asia during the testing times.

"We are growing at a pace of 20 per cent on the Asia-Pacific route and our policy would continue to further consolidate our market in South East Asia and Asia in particular."

Both Mr. Male and the Chairman and CEO of Air France, Mr. Jean Cyril Spinetta, exude confidence about the growth of the airline globally.

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