Lufthansa’s Pune-Frankfurt, all-business class, flight debuts

Pune: Deutsch Lufthansa launched its maiden Pune-Frankfurt, all-business class, flight today with a Airbus 319 carrier, reconfigured to provide a seating arrangement of 48 seats. Announcing the launch of this 6-days-a-week flight, Lufthansa south east Asia director, Werner Heesen, said the company plans to attract only "corporate" fliers through this flight.

Though the debut flight was not chock full with passengers it does mark an important milestone in the services that the European carrier provides to the Indian subcontinent. The German carrier provides connectivity to 97 European and 23 US destinations and will obviously expect the important Indian manufacturing and IT centre of Pune to provide it with enough ''corporate'' traffic.

A return ticket will cost Rs95,000.

Pune has a very large presence of foreign manufacturers, who either have their own manufacturing operation, or are in joint venture with an Indian concern. Lufthansa director, Heesen, said the company was confident that the route will be profitable.

Lufthansa currently operates 55 flights a week from India to Franfurt, Munich and Zurich. Pune now joins other cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata, New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad from where Lufthansa offers connections to German destinations.

The company earns 23 per cent of its Asia-Pacific region revenues from India alone, just below the top revenue earning country, Japan.