Indian air carriers, especially the no-frills ones, are spreading their wings in the southern skies. IndiGo has started flying to new destinations such as Ahmedabad, Jaipur and Kolkata from Chennai. The airline will now operate daily non-stop flights on these sectors.
SpiceJet, in which the Southern media baron and Sun Network chief Kalanithi Maran holds close to 31%, is busy charting upgradation plans for the southern network. The low-cost airline, which recently started its international opertions to Colombo and Jaffna, is eyeing tier II and tier III destinations in Tamil Nadu. It had recently launched Madurai service connecting places such as Delhi and Mumbai.
IndiGo will also increase frequency from Chennai to Coimbatore, and flights from Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Delhi by the end of this month. According to an IndiGo sources, the airline will bank on affordable fares, on-time flights and a hassle-free travel experience to make it big in the southern markets. IndiGo claims to have one of the best on-time performances in the country and a technical dispatch reliability of 99.91% that makes it the airline with the least number of cancellations.
With its fleet of 29 new Airbus A320 aircraft , the airline will offer 194 daily flights, connecting 22 destinations including Agartala, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Delhi, Goa, Guwahati, Dibrugarh ,Hyderabad , Imphal , Jaipur ,Jammu, Kochi , Kolkata , Lucknow , Mumbai , Nagpur, Patna , Pune, Srinagar and Vadodara, said the source.
Aditya Ghosh, president, IndiGo, said, ?Having recorded 90.63% on time perfornance for flights operating out of Chennai from mid-August to September 2010, it is our constant endeavour to meet the requirements of both business and leisure travellers. These new services will provide greater flexibility of choice for our customers, and will strengthen our existing route network in South India. IndiGo also has inducted the 29th A320 into its fleet and recently added three new flights from Kolkata. The airline now operates its third non-stop daily flight on the Kolkata-Agartala route, and second non-stop daily flights on Kolkata to Jaipur sector. ?
The board of directors of the SpiceJet on November 2 had given its greenn signal to order 30 Q400 NextGen turboprop aircraft from Bombardier with deliveries starting from second the quarter of 2011 to enhance regional connectivity. ?We see a huge opportunity in regional connectivity. We can tap tier II and tier III cities,? SpiceJet CEO Neil Mills had told reporters after the board meet. SpiceJet, in July this year, had booked another 30 Boeing Next-Generation 737-800 with winglets. Valued at about $ 2.3 billion at list prices, the order was previously attributed to an unidentified customer on Boeing?s orders and deliveries website.
?The aviation sector in India is recovering and business and leisure travel is on the rise. With the addition of the new 737s, it will help us expand SpiceJet?s domestic network as well as support the launch of our international destinations,? said Neil Mills in a communication on the Boeing deal.
According to Angel Broking, in the second quarter, SpiceJet had registered EBIDTA margin of 0.6% and EBIDTA of Rs 3.6 crore as against Rs 118 crore loss mainly on account of increase in passenger traffic and better operational efficiency.