'Aviation industry will soar again'

“Our pre-booking for the next six months show that we are ahead of last year’s numbers”, airline’s Director (South Asia), Axel Hilgers said here on Thursday.

He, however, said this did not mean the yields are good. “Pressure on fares is continuing and the yields dipped by about 20 % last year. Corporate flyers are not coming back and fares in general are not going to go up”.

Hilgers, in an informal interaction with media here, said despite the recession hitting the aviation industry, Lufthansa has not cut services or cancelled routes in India.

Lufthansa only last week launched an all-business class service between Mumbai-Munich which is second such after the Pune-Munich flight. Response for the two flights, Hilgers said, had been good with more than 60 per cent of the seats getting filled up which is the break-even point. At present, there was no proposal to fly business jets to new destinations in India, he added.

On Air India’s chances of getting membership of Star Alliance, Hilgers said the possibilities have brightened, now that the state carrier has the right kind of planes and numbers unlike earlier when it had older planes. On the chances of Lufthansa flying A380 to India, he said the airports should be prepared to get the world’s biggest plane.  Delhi would be the first airport to get the infrastructure ready for A380, which can accommodate 550 passengers in three classes.