Lufthansa plans to increase flight frequency

"We are planning to increase the frequency of Pune-Frankfurt-Pune flights to five times a week as against the present three times a week. Same is the case with Hyderabad-Frankfurt-Hyderabad flights," said Axel Hilgers, Lufthansa's South Asia director.

Apart from these two locations, the airline is looking forward to making the Mumbai-Munich-Mumbai flight a daily flight as against the present five times a week flight. Bangalore-Frankfurt-Bangalore and Chennai-Frankfurt-Chennai has already been made a daily flight.

Hilgers said that the airline has been seeing an upward trend in the business class bookings.

"The yield for business class bookings has gone up by 30 percent. The first quarter of 2010 has been far better than the last quarter of 2009 inspite of a five day shutdown - four days due to the ash cloud and a one-day due to strike of pilots," Hilgers said.

Hilgers said that they did go through a rough patch due to the downturn last year. "But with summer approaching, we are expecting a stable business," he said.

"Our booking figures are promising and we are looking forward to high yields during the year," he added.