Europe’s second largest airline, Lufthansa, has decided to increase the number of flights between Calcutta and Frankfurt from three to five a week, beginning June 3.

The airline’s director for South Asia, Werner Heesen, said on Monday that Calcutta was “increasingly gaining in importance as a strategic growth market” and that this was reflected in the demand for tickets.

The new flights will take off from Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport at 12.55am on Wednesdays and Sundays and reach Frankfurt at 7.25am local time.

“Lufthansa has steadily expanded its flight calendar to the country in recent years… We are monitoring Calcutta’s market very closely and have plans to introduce daily flights from the city soon,” Heesen said.

Business travellers account for 60 per cent of Lufthansa’s passenger traffic to and from Calcutta.

The addition of two flights has increased Lufthansa’s presence in India to 50 flights a week from seven destinations. The increase was made possible by an air traffic agreement signed by India and Germany in April.

According to the agreement, 69 flights each can be operated every week by German and Indian carriers. Industry sources said Lufthansa was contemplating connecting Calcutta to Munich, but Heesen declined comment.

The airline only recently introduced a direct flight from Mumbai to Munich.

“With direct connectivity to Europe, there has been an 18 per cent growth in passenger traffic to that sector over the past year. It is likely to go up even more this year,” Anil Punjabi, chairman (east) of the Travel Agents’ Federation of India, said.

Emirates recently increased its flight frequency from the city. The airline flies Calcutta-Dubai daily. Thai Airways, too, operates daily flights to Bangkok.