Lufthansa (LH, Frankfurt International) is seeking to "strengthen" its ties with Indian airlines like Vistara (Delhi International) and Air India (AI, Delhi International) next year as a result of the demise of Jet Airways (Mumbai International) in April.

Currently, Lufthansa Group has an interline agreement with Vistara, and may look to pursue moving this up to a full codeshare in the future.

"We are trying to strengthen it," said George Ettiyil, Senior Director, South Asia, Lufthansa Group to the Press Trust of India. "Let us see what the future holds in store. We have the desire to actually strengthen partnerships with other Indian airlines also. So, Vistara is an obvious choice."

These moves by Lufthansa with industry newcomer Vistara are being taken despite a long-held codeshare agreement with the more established Air India.

Definitely on the agenda for 2020 is penetrating deeper into India. The Lufthansa Group "will be trying to strengthen our Indian partnerships" so that Indian carriers "can bring passengers from second- and third-tier cities to our four gateways," Ettiyil suggests.

Both Lufthansa and Swiss (LX, Zurich) operate flights to India, with the latter carrier presently flying daily services from Zurich to Delhi International and Mumbai International, both with its 14-strong A330-300 fleet. The German flag carrier operates daily flights from Frankfurt International to Delhi (A380-800 service), Mumbai (B747-400 service), Bengaluru International (B747-8 service) and Chennai (A340-300), as well as daily flights connecting Munich to Delhi (A350-900 service) and Mumbai (A350-900 service). In addition, Lufthansa will start a 5x weekly operation connecting Munich and Bangalore, from March 31, 2020.

Despite this pending route launch next spring, Ettiyil confirmed that the airline does not plan to start any other service in 2020. "We currently do not have any immediate plans to grow in terms of adding flight capacity. We have seen continuous growth over the past four years of India's share on our aircraft. We are trying to grow by allowing more Indian-origin passengers on our aircraft," he added.

While in the short-term new points in India are not an option, the medium-term is another consideration. "Promising cities are always on the radar. Hyderabad International is always something that is there. But one has to always look at profitability," Ettiyil said.

When asked if Lufthansa was planning to resume its Frankfurt to Pune operations, which had been flown under a wet-lease agreement with PrivatAir (Germany) (Düsseldorf) until it went bankrupt in December 2018, Ettiyil was dismissive.

"We have tried for a year [to find an alternative]. We have not been successful so far. We don't have that kind of aircraft. This aircraft [for the Frankfurt-Pune route] has to be a modified aircraft. It needs to have a bigger fuel tank, less cargo capacity and the economy class should be better than the domestic product," he said.

Ettiyil also added that the modified plane needed to have a European Air Operator's Certificate (AOC), with safety standards that were regulated by the European Union (EU). Therefore, due to these specific requirements, the airline was unable to restart the Pune operations as yet, but he did not completely rule out the opportunity: "If we find an alternative to PrivatAir, we will definitely restart it."

After PrivatAir's demise last year, Lufthansa did operate the service itself between December 2018 and January 2019, using its own A319-100s, however, Ettiyil said: "Passengers did not accept that."

Ettiyil also commented that Pune's main runway 10/28 is only 2,539 metres-long and is, therefore, a challenge in terms of attracting long-haul services. He said that if the Indian Air Force is able to expand the airport after buying an additional piece of land, any wide-body aircraft will be able to land there. "Not just Lufthansa, but many airlines would be willing to operate to Pune if the air force allows," he concluded.