OVER ten per cent growth in air traffic between India and US does not seem to be lucrative enough for airlines to start new nonstop flights on this route.

Three carriers – Air India (AI), Continental Airlines and American Airlines – that have nonstop services from India to US do not have any immediate plans to add more flights to this route.

This is despite the high seat factor that hovers around over 80 per cent and claim to be quite happy with their performances.

“For the next 10-12 months, there is no plan to add new non-stop flight from India. This is for purely business reasons.

Not many people want to fly 15-hour or longer flight.

There is bigger risk and therefore it takes quite some time before a decision to add such flights is taken,” Charles M Duncan, vice president (Transatlantic, Middle East and India), United – Continental Airlines said.

At present, there are limited numbers of direct flights on India-US route.

The national carrier AI has two direct daily flights from Delhi and Mumbai to New

York. While Continental too has two daily flights from Mumbai and Delhi to New York, American Airlines has only one daily flight from New Delhi to Chicago.

According to industry experts, the carriers are cautious to fly direct flights on India-US as the sector already has sufficient capacity. “There are a number of airlines that have connecting flights from India to US. Most of them operate

via Europe. For passengers, who want to go to a particular destination in US, flying via Europe seems to be a better option. This is why, it is a big challenge for the airlines to add more direct flights between India and US,” Ankur Bhatia, executive director, Bird Group, said.

Airlines have also opted a more cautious approach to avoid over-capacity. “We are satisfied with our reach at this stage in India.

Although India is a strongly

growing market, it is important to avoid creating over-capacity. We have seen before how the airline business can suffer when there is too much capacity and it is important to take a disciplined approach,” Philip Lewin, country manager (India), American Airlines said.

It would take over a year for adding more non-stop flights on this sector. “The traffic on this route is growing over 10 per cent.

The airlines are realising the potential and in the next 12 months, there would be more addition to non-stop flights,” Bhatia explains.

The carriers share the confidence, tempered though with more caution.

“We want to make most of the opportunity that Delhi and northern India offer before we look at possibility of expanding to other parts of India, which we feel continue to be well covered through our code share and interline partners. Mor eover connectivity via Delhi will be further improved once the domestic carriers move into Terminal 3 as it will allow customers to transfer between flights without changing terminals,” Lewin said.

On its part, Air India has decided to fly its long flights non-stop to various destinations from the new terminal 3 in New Delhi beginning this winter. It has a load factor of 85 per cent.

"We will make Delhi our main hub from this winter.

Which means, we will fly all the international destin ations from Delhi and they will be non-stop. The Mumbai-New York flight has already been flying via Delhi," an AI official said.