Singapore Air eyes non-core investments

Singapore Airlines is scouting for investment opportunities in aircraft maintenance and engineering and ground handling services in India.

The airline's ground handling and inflight catering services subsidiary SATS already has a catering joint venture with Taj Hotels.

"There are investment opportunities in India. We are exploring the possibilities," said B K Ong, general manager (India), Singapore Airlines.

Besides, the airline, which operates 49 services to about 10 points in India, wants to add more capacity in select routes. It also plans to start operations to more locations.

Singapore Airlines also wants to start co-terminal services from India. Under this model, an international airline can start the flight from an Indian city to an international destination via another Indian city. For example, the airline can start a service to Singapore from Patna with a stop-over in Delhi to collect passengers and undertake the onward journey.

At present the government does not permit foreign and private domestic carriers to operate such a service, while Air India and Indian Airlines operate such services on multiple routes.

"We would like to have a service like that as it would help us in a major way. We have been asking the government for allowing this," Ong said.

Singapore Airlines, which will be operating 14 flights a week from Mumbai starting April 1, 2005, would want a similar connectivity from Delhi and other cities. Besides, it will also want to operate a larger aircraft to cities like Hyderabad.

"Our subsidiary Silk Air operates to cities like Hyderabad with a smaller aircraft. We want to add capacity in this route with a larger aircraft," Ong said.

On starting services to other Indian cities, Ong said the carrier is awaiting government's permission for this. "We want to start services, but we need permission from Indian authorities for this," he pointed out.

Singapore Airlines has also identified India as a major growth opportunity for it globally.

"India is a focus market for us. We see tremendous growth opportunities here. The market has become much better after the recent policies of the government," he said.

The airline, which will be the first to start services with Airbus A 380 aircraft, expects to service the Indian market with the super jumbo aircraft.

"The A 380 will be deployed in the dense routes like Singapore-Sydney. India will have connections to these routes," Ong said adding that it does not see an immediate possibility of operating an A 380 to any Indian city.