23.8.12

Southern connections



The sky over south India is likely to get crowded in coming months. If plans floated by a few new airlines take off on time, travelling time between smaller cities in the peninsula could soon reduce.
Most tier-II cities here are not well connected to each other by air despite a large potential clientele, which is thereby forced to rely on roads and railways. But regional airlines are coming up in a big way to bridge the demand-supply gap and a vacuum created by the downsizing of Kingfisher Airlines.
Air Pegasus and Air Costa are gearing up to start services in a couple of months having received a no-objection from the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). They will interconnect tier II cities and connect tier II cities with the nearest metro as well.
Under licence rules, regional airlines are allowed to fly to only one metro. However, in the south, rules have been relaxed by DGCA due to the proximity of the three metros — Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore — and regional airlines will be allowed to fly into more than one metro.
“We plan to start operations to 13 destinations, including Trichy, Madurai, Coimbatore, Mangalore, Chennai, Bangalore, Goa and Kochi, by October. Aircraft will arrive soon and we are finalizing formalities at airports,” said Shyson Thomas, managing director of Air Pegasus which was floated by ground-handling company Décor Aviation.
Given the short distances and the volume of traffic, regional airlines in the south are likely to adopt a business model which requires managing fleets of smaller aircraft like 50-60 seater ATRs and Bombardier aircraft.
They will have a few advantages that many domestic airlines, including low cost carriers, do not enjoy. Aircraft with less than 80 seats are exempted from landing fees and fuel sales tax is only 4%. Airports Authority of India (AAI) has also mooted proposals to improve air connectivity between tier II cities. These include concessional tariffs and waiving of night parking charges at tier II airports. To provide a boost to the sector, it is also modernizing around 35 smaller airports in the region.
Volk Air is another airline looking to operate to 15 cities in the region.
Meanwhile, the bigger players like Jet Airways and Air India are also improving frequencies between small towns and metros in the south from November. Air India will start a Kochi-Bangalore flight and a Kochi-Madurai service while Jet will start a Bangalore-Madurai service.

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