Why you have made Brussels your hub?
There are no slots at the Paris, Frankfurt or Amsterdam airports. These airports are very busy and very congested in the morning. But Brussels is a very friendly airport. There's not too much traffic. The airport has the capacity to handle 30 million passengers. It is currently handling only 16 million.
Brussels won't be a handicap?
Every Indian doesn't go to Amsterdam, Paris or Frankfurt… If you fly Lufthansa or KLM, you still connect to other European cities. Similarly we will connect you from Brussels to 50 places in Europe. We will also be able to connect you with European airlines. We have agreements with Lufthansa, KLM, Swiss, Air France, Alitalia, Iberia, British Airways, etc. In fact, we have an understanding with all European airlines.
Will they respect your tickets?
Of course. We are already part of the agreement. There's no problem. We are already honoring each other's tickets. From Brussels we will also be able to fly you to 14 places in Africa.
How many countries do you fly now to?
Now we are flying to Nepal, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore, and London.
We have 27 flights a week to London. We fly about four times a day to London -- twice every day from Mumbai; once every day from Delhi; three times a week from Amritsar; once a week from Ahmedabad.
And we are already the first choice on the London route. We have 21 flights a week to Singapore. People prefer Jet Airways. We fly to Bangkok twice a day. We will increase that to three flights.
Image: From left, Wilfried Van Assche, CEO, Brussels Airport Company, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, Naresh Goyal, Praful Patel and Philippe Vander Putten, CEO, Brussels Airlines, at the signing of the memorandum for Jet's new European hub at Zaventem airport, May 2, 2007. Photograph: Herwig Vergult/AFP/Getty Images
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