NEW YORK - Singapore Airlines added nine weekly flights to India last year, bringing its total to 104. Air France-KLM is increasing its seat capacity on Indian flights by 25 per cent this winter. United Airlines has just begun offering nonstop seasonal daily flights from San Francisco to Delhi. And Delta Air Lines began non-stop service between Kennedy International Airport in New York and Mumbai in December.
The uptick in flights, experts say, is the result of a variety of economic, social, immigration and travel trends. More international social media and tech companies are setting up shop in India or increasing their staff. A growing number of Indians are living and working in the US, Canada, Britain and elsewhere, and that means more homeland visits for traditionally close-knit Indian families.
While there are signs of an economic slowdown in India, business travel to India remains strong. And driving that travel is bilateral trade, said Gunjan Bagla, managing director of Amritt Ventures, a company in Malibu, California, that helps Western companies market their products and services to India.
Raymond Kollau, founder of the aviation research agency Airline Trends, said that while studies showed that well-established aviation regions like Europe and North America would continue to grow,"the global economic centre of gravity is shifting from the West to emerging Asian countries, which means more airlines are looking east before they look west."