Kolkata: Buoyed by a handsome growth in West-bound traffic, British Airways (BA) wants to double the number of its weekly flights from India, subject to bilateral settlement in this regard.

"Yes, we want to double the number of our weekly flights from India, provided the matter was settled bilaterally," BA's South Asia chief Andy Stern said.

Stern was speaking on the occasion of introduction of BA's third weekly non-stop flight between Kolkata and London from yesterday (Dec 3, 2003), which takes the total number of its flight from India to 19.

The BA official said the additional non-stop flight from Kolkata was introduced to meet the growing customer demand in the region and to promote tourism in both the countries.

British Airways, which so far operated two flights on Fridays and Sundays, would now operate its third flight on Wednesdays.

Stern said that BA had already taken up the matter of more weekly flights with the Civil Aviation Ministry and "we were told there are some bilateral constraints in this regard".

BA currently operates out of the four metros and as per Stern, the airline is keen to add more new destinations, preferably from south India.

"We want to increase the number of flights with more importance to the South and connect Bangalore and Hyderabad in particular provided the matter is settled bilaterally," he said.

BA currently operates seven weekly flights each out of Delhi and Mumbai, three from Kolkata and two from Chennai with all flights non-stop to London.

PTI