PrivatAir Goes Out Of Business

Are the Volkswagen and Mercedes plants the drivers for the Lufthansa flight? What else is going on in Pune that would require such a thin but premium route?

I hope that Lufthansa will buy the PrivatAir 737 that they've been operating flights with or will configure one of their own aircraft with a special configuration, but something tells me that they will stick with their plan and operate a regular A319 via Baku.....

HiFly? They've been growing, are very flexible, and have more ability to deal with some of the volatility in the long-term charter market than smaller operators.

Lufthansa really needs some smaller long-haul aircraft. They've got the large end covered (A380, 747-8I) but nothing smaller than the A330-300. Maybe Privatair going out of business will get Lufthansa to think more seriously about how they serve routes like Pune. They need the A321LR (they're considering it apparently), and I'm still surprised they never ordered the Dreamliner. A plane like the 787-8 would allow them to serve markets in Asia and Africa, where they've been cutting routes even as other airlines grow. While they're at it maybe they could come up with a more competitive J product for the mid- to short-end-of-long-haul flights (say 4 to 7 hours) that's more like what BA offers on their A321s, rather than just an empty seat in the middle.

Could imagine Titan taking some aircraft especially if Lufthansa would guarentee the Pune route

One of the 737 was operating BA shorthaul out of Gatwick this summer in place of a E170 from Eastern that had disastrous reliability- a curious use of such a configured bird but guess they just wanted to have the aircraft earning revenue

I think, that was a long-time plan of Lufthansa: break the contract with PrivatAir this year - - > wait a few weeks (or month) and see what happens with them (no chances for such a small player to get alternatives in that short period!) - - > and now that they have signed up for bankruptcy, LH will get those needed planes for Pune very cheap out of the insolvency masses. Or is that all just a coincidence? Hmmmm....

@PW Hi Fly's A380 doesn't seem to have done a passenger flight since Sept 18 when it was damaged by a jetbridge. I wonder how big an impact that will have on their financials; it must be costing a fortune not having it up and running for so long. Hope they can weather that loss.

@GuruJanitor IT industry. There are not many direct flights originating in other countries - I try avoiding transiting Indian airports if I can.

I could fly into BOM (which is really close with good intl options) but I hate the rollercoaster short flight over the mountains connecting to PNQ. Worse, my company bans us from travelling by car and the train is typically booked in advance save some emergency tickets.

Flying from US with only one hop and trying to keep trip time around 21 hours is challenging. I never flew the Frankfurt flight and instead typically opt for a stay over in Dubai on my way in/out. The AUH or DXB flights to PNQ are typically full from my experience... I would welcome any more options on this destination, which unfortunately is limited to 737 etc.

German news site reports that flights were planned with privatair originally from February are not bookable til Lufthansa has made a decision how to proceed with this new situation and the length of the runway (limitation to short haul planes) : https://www.aerotelegraph.com/lufthansa-nimmt-pune-fluege-vorerst-aus-programm . There will be no direct flights to Pune til a decision has been made.