Three new airlines ready to take off

Deccan Herald(30-06-2006)
http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/jun302006/national1737332006629.asp

Three new airlines ready to take off

From B S Arun

New Delhi: The boom in the civil aviation sector continues. At least three new airlines will launch operations in India in the next two months, giving an added boost to air connectivity across the country.

IndiGo Airlines, Indus Air and Jagson Airlines are the new players waiting to take off. While the first is a low-cost carrier, Indus will have business class seats and Jagson will offer a mixed fare.

IndiGo, which stunned the aviation world by ordering for 100 Airbus A320 aircraft costing $6 billion last year, will launch its operations with a leased A320 aircraft. Bruce Ashby, former executive vice-president (marketing and planning), US Airways, has joined IndiGo as its president and chief executive officer.

The venture is being jointly promoted by InterGlobe Enterprises and Rakesh Gangwal, an expert in the airline industry who is known for his management skills. InterGlobe, established in 1989, is a leading travel conglomerate in India and enjoys a significant presence in the fields of aviation management and travel-related services.

IndiGo plans to induct one aircraft every month starting July end. The airlines will have six aircraft by the end of this year and add nine more to its fleet next year. IndiGo is likely to connect Delhi and Mumbai with Jammu, Srinagar, Guwahati, Imphal, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune and Nagpur.

Indus Air, partly promoted by liquor company Mohan Meakins, will be a regional airline. It is all set to launch the service by August. Connecting mainly North Indian cities, Indus will offer business class seats at economy class fares. Its fleet will consist of 50-seater Bombardier CRJ-200 (Canadair Regional Jet) aircraft. Indus will launch the service with two CRJ-200s and acquire three more CRJs next year. With Delhi as its base, the new airline will fly to Chandigarh, Amritsar, Jammu, Bhopal, Indore, Mumbai and Ahmedabad. The third carrier – Jagson – is technically not a new airline, but will launch its long-haul operations in August. It has firmed up plans to purchase 20 Airbus A321 aircraft at an estimated value of about $1.3 billion for its national carrier operations.

Starting its service with the Delhi-Bangalore route, Jagson, which currently connects Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and parts of South India through its small aircraft, will link Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Jaipur, Dibrugarh Patna and Goa in the first phase.

Confirming the launch of these airlines, sources in the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the regulatory body for the aviation industry, said both IndiGo and Indus were having “preparedness meetings” with DGCA.

At the preparedness meetings, a must before any airline launches operations, the carriers have to convince the DGCA of their readiness in terms of engineering aspects, cabin crew, training, schedules etc.

There were at least two other airlines which wanted to start services – Air One and East West. “But we have not heard anything from them,” the sources added.