Low-cost carriers bank on thrift, more flights

New Delhi: The country’s low-cost airlines are flying into the upcoming summer season with a new confidence.
With new planes being added to their fleets, these airlines plan to increase the number of daily flights by up to 7% in their new summer schedule starting end-March. The reason: passengers are expected to turn to thrifty travel options in a slowing economy.
Low-cost carriers, who are estimated to fly one of the every two passengers in the country, will likely run into competition from full-service rivals. They, too, are applying to increase the number of flights in the summer schedule, by bringing back grounded aircraft and utilizing planes in their fleets better, if passenger demand revives in the election season.
Flight permissions are granted in two schedules by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the country’s aviation regulator. The summer schedule begins on the last Sunday of March and runs until the last Saturday of October, while the winter schedule stretches from the last Sunday of October to the last Saturday of March.
Low-cost carrier SpiceJet Ltd, which has 115 daily flights currently, plans to add four flights by March-end and additional three-four flights by mid-April, using its fleet of 19 Airbus SAS-made A320 aircraft.
At InterGlobe Aviation Pvt. Ltd-run IndiGo, which took delivery of its 19th aircraft this month, plans are afoot to add six new flights—taking the total daily flights from 119 to 125—starting 29 March. These include flights connecting Ahmedabad and Bangalore, Ahmedabad and New Delhi, Bangalore and New Delhi, and Bangalore and Kolkata, according to the company’s website.
Jet Airways executive director Saroj K. Dutta said the airline will not make any major changes to its domestic schedules, but minor “substituting” of some flights and increasing by a handful.
A Kingfisher Airlines executive, who did not want to be identified, said his airline expects to increase its current 408 flights a day and add a few new sectors gradually. Details were not available. National Aviation Co. of India Ltd, which operates Air India, and has around 280 daily domestic flights currently, last month said in a presentation to the civil aviation ministry that its number of flights is likely to remain unchanged, except a New Delhi-Kochi-Thiruvananthapuram flight.
17/03/09 Tarun Shukla/Livemint

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Categories: Low Cost General Mar 2009