Mr Dieter Vranckx | VP Sales Asia Pacific | Lufthansa Group

to Mumbai and to be able to celebrate the inauguration of the flight connecting Mumbai with Brussels. Every time I come here and I look at the Mumbai airport, it's really a pleasure to see the new airport. If you see the progress being made in India in the infrastructure, it's something which I have experienced in the last 10 years when I was already based in Asia Pacific, and this progress is amazing. If you get out of the aircraft and you walk through the airport, it's like walking through a museum. It's incredibly beautiful, and it's even better today that we will connect another beautiful airport with the beautiful airport of Mumbai, which is Brussels Airport. A lot has been said by B on Brussels Airport. One thing he forgot to mention was that you will find the best beer of the world there, and on the chocolate we have some internal discussions still on the Swiss and the Belgians, but the chocolate which is there is amazing. So a lot of good reasons to travel from Mumbai to Brussels or from Brussels to Mumbai. And as representative of the Lufthansa Group, representing Lufthansa, Brussels Airlines, Swiss International Airlines, and Austrian Airlines, I'm extremely proud that we are here and we will be representing and selling Brussels Airlines. Brussels Airlines is a key partner of the group, a key partner of our network, and of course as being a European leading aviation group, we have the pleasure to support Brussels Airlines in their India strategy. The offer which currently will be on the map with Mumbai-Brussels is very complementary to what we offer already as an international airline group. A lot of combinability of tickets going from Mumbai to the US or to Europe with Brussels Airlines, coming back with another carrier or the other way around. This full flexibility will allow us to make and mark a better position in the marketplace. We, as the Lufthansa Group, have been more than half a century already here in India. We have a long history, we have a lot of experience, and it's exactly that experience and that multi-diversity which we will use to support and to strengthen the Brussels Airlines operations. So how are we committed to India? First of all, when we talk about growing economies, there is always one which jumps up in first place: that's China. But we have more direct flights as a group to India than we have to China, and that's quite an achievement. Even if you look at the gateways, we have more gateways to India than we have to China. That shows our commitment and our trust in the Indian economy and in the Indian trade. We bring the newest aircraft to India. We have our flagship the A380. We have just launched with Airbus A350 Delhi and also Mumbai with Lufthansa to Munich. And now we have the beautiful A330 from Brussels Airlines connecting Mumbai with Brussels. We are also committed to bringing a local flavor and local flair onto our product. We have almost 300 Indian cabin crew which we use on the different fleets of the group. We want to be close to the Indian culture, to the Indian taste, and to Indian products. So for the ones who are living here in Mumbai or India, I'm sure you have heard about our 'More Indian than you think' promotional spot which we basically have launched, and I'm sure you also have seen the last one with the cricket team which we had some very positive responses. So looking at the new destinations, looking at Mumbai-Brussels, we can say that we are very committed to putting Brussels Airlines on the map. We are back. We are very proud as a Belgian community to be here, to connect Belgium and India. And as a Lufthansa Group with all our investments in products, in digitalization, in an innovation hub where we invested 100 million in Berlin, all these investments which are done in a group will be used for the benefit of all the partners in the group, including Brussels Airlines. And with that, with the full strength of the group, with the full focus of Brussels Airlines here in Mumbai, we are going to make this a big success. Thank you very much.