Air India eyes Dublin as its transatlantic hub

FLYING:A DELEGATION from Air India is expected to visit Dublin Airport in the next month with a view to making Terminal 2 its transatlantic hub.

Air India used to route five flights a day through Frankfurt en route to North America but has since withdrawn, complaining of a lack of capacity and a high cost per passenger.

Minister for Tourism Leo Varadkar was in India for St Patrick’s Day along with Dublin Airport Authority chief executive Declan Collier to try and secure Terminal 2 as an Air India hub.

The contract with Air India is up for grabs. Seven European airports were considered. Dublin is in the final two. The other is believed to be Birmingham Airport.

Birmingham has a large population base and a big Indian community, but a spokesman for the DAA said it had a “very compelling offer” as landing charges at Dublin Airport were among the lowest in Europe.

T2 also has a Custom and Border Protection pre-clearance facility for the United States. This would mean that Air India passengers could go on to regional airports in the US without having to go through customs again.

The potential move opens up the prospect of direct flights between Ireland and India for the first time creating a new tourism market in both directions.

Varadkar said Irish tourists travelling to Australia and New Zealand would be able to use Delhi rather than Dubai as a stopover point.

Ireland and India are now working on a bilateral Air Services Agreement and freedom rights which allow an airline to pick up and fly passengers from one foreign destination to another. Though India is already a popular tourism destination for Irish visitors, Tourism Ireland has identified India as a huge emerging tourism market with a growing middle class.

It said it will lobby the Department of Justice and Law Reform to facilitate a stopover visa in Ireland for Indian travellers en route to the US.

An office to facilitate Indian visitors to Ireland was opened in February 2004 and a training programme for Indian travel agents, known as Shamrock Agents, has made some of the key players familiar with Ireland. Tourism Ireland believes there is a lot of potential in India’s growing golfing market which already attracts between 500 and 1,000 Indian golfers a year to Ireland, most of whom are among the wealthiest strata of Indian society. Organisers of golf tours believe that market could grow to 10,000 golfers a year within five years.