Foreign LCCs hover over India

Mumbai/New Delhi: International no-frills budget carriers making a beeline for India.
A price war in international air travel is imminent with several Asian low-cost carriers (LCCs) receiving or applying for permission to fly from their countries into India.
The airlines include Tiger Air (a joint venture between Temasek Holdings and Singapore Airlines), Thailand-based private carrier Nok Air, Indonesia?s Lion Air, United Arab Emirates?s Ras Al Khaima (RAK) Airlines, Malaysia's Air Asia and Saudi Arabia's Sama Airways.
Last week, Tiger Air received permission to fly six cities in India from Singapore, which include Chennai, Goa, Cochin, Kozhikode, Trivandrum and Kolkata, and is expected to start flying in the next few weeks. Nok Air has started daily flights from Bangalore to Bangkok at a return fare of less than Rs 10,000 from June first week.
RAK Airlines, which was set up in 2006 as the fourth carrier from the United Arab Emirates, will start operations to Mumbai, Delhi, Trivandrum, Kochi and Bangalore. And Air Asia founded by the maverick Tony Fernandes is looking at flying from Malaysia to Kolkata.
Industry experts say that the operation of low-cost carriers in the international skies would bring down prices by at least half to 75 per cent.
12/06/07 P R Sanjai & Surajeet Das Gupta/Business Standard

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Categories: Foreign Jun 2007, Low Cost General Jun 2007, New Jun 2007