Finnair's decision to quadruple its flights to India has been greeted enthusiastically by its cargo GSSA, Global Aviation Group.

Global represented Finnair as an offline carrier for many years, before the airline began direct services from Delhi in October 2006. Since then, Global has been virtually filling all flights, and recently went on record to say that it could fill as much space as Finnair could give it.

Now Global's wish has come true, with four more flights per week from Delhi starting in mid-May. At the same time, the aircraft serving the route will upgrade from MD11 to A340, increasing capacity from 15 to 25 tons.

In addition to the extra Delhi services, Finnair will introduce 5 flights per week from Mumbai in June. Like the Delhi services, these will use A340s operating non-stop to Helsinki.

Says Global Aviation's Executive Director - Strategic Planning & Business Development, Prabodh Tipnis: 'We are all excited with Finnair's announcement that it is expanding its India operations. Since the inception of services last year we have been full on most flights, and the demand has been well-spread throughout Scandinavia (60%), CIS (eight percent) and Europe (32%). Most of this traffic has originated from the Delhi region, however.

'With the addition of direct services from Mumbai to Helsinki, we will be able to continue our focus on transshipment traffic for the entire Finnair system over a much wider area of India. We expect the CIS to be particularly popular, assisted by Finnair's excellent scheduled road feeder network.'

Global Aviation Services was launched in 1975, and is India's largest GSSA organization, with cargo and passenger operations at a total of 61 offices in 16 cities across India, employing over 600 staff. Global represents the cargo services of Air Canada, Air New Zealand, Continental Cargo, El Al, Emirates SkyCargo, Finnair, Icelandair, Korean Air, Malaysia Airlines, Nippon Cargo Airlines and Qantas. It is the exclusive Indian member of the EGSAC cargo GSSA network, which has 29 members at 60 locations in 30 countries.