Airlines gearing up to fly high on festive fervour

New Delhi: After being hit by fuel price hike and capacity cut, airlines such as Jet Airways, Kingfisher, SpiceJet and IndiGo are adding more flights in the domestic routes, anticipating better demand in the festival season ahead.
Kingfisher Airlines is planning to launch six Airbus A321s in the next six months and will be deployed these on around 10 new routes (such as Mumbai-Pune) a day apart from short haul international destinations, sources said. Besides, the airlines is also planning to deploy ATRs on two new destinations, Latur and Nanded in Gujarat. While Kingfisher is looking at adding at least 15 new flights in the winter season, competitors Jet Airways, SpiceJet, IndiGo and Paramounts are adding over 30 new flights together (arrivals and departures), by a combination of better utilisation of existing aircraft and inducting new fleet, to destinations like Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Chennai, Pune, Goa and Vishakhapatnam apart from smaller destinations like Rajamundhry and Tirupati.
The country’s largest airlines by market share Jet Airways is also planning to launch three more ATRs this year.These ATRs would be operating nine frequencies. The flights will primarily be in the Southern routes.
“Our aircraft utilisation will increase by almost half-an-hour-a-day, due to the added flights,” said a SpiceJet executive.
South Indian premium carrier Paramount Airways also has major plans to increase capacity, albeit to the smaller cities.
29/09/08 Anirban Chowdhury/Business Standard

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Categories: Indian Aviation- In General Sep 2008