Unfortunately does the growth in Ex India aitravel not cope with the extremely high demand. Living in DEL it is imparative to have SEN Status on LH and a minimum of one more seat guarantee card, in my case BA Gold. Sometimes flights are so heavily overbooked, that it is even with the booking guarantee not possible to get on a flight to Europe for days. Eventhough in this cases my waiting list experience is ok, I also draw that on the fact that they know me in DEL station.
The Indian Government is restricting the landing rights for foreign carriers and LH is alreday the one with the most slots, because they cooperate with Air India and Germany has not restricted landing rights to Air India.
British Airways wants to add many flights and add destinations like Bangalore for example, but the Indian government protects Air India and will only allow BA more landing rights with AI getting more landing rights in Heathrow. Eventhough it is a government, I think they have a point. One good thing is that we are now getting an additional daily nonstop to Frankfurt from BOM with Air India on a new 744.
Air India is not too bad by the way. I really prefer them in Business towards Lufthansa, which I feel is pretty bad on overnight flights, so they need to upgrade a lot (Out of India the upgrade only costs 200 Euros at the station). On day fights its bearable on board of LH. Because most LH India flights are operated on older 744 I am pretty sure we will be the last country to have the new C class rolled out......which also comes with less competition.
[This message has been edited by DELHOPPER (edited Nov 30, 2003).]