In a bid to grab a 10% market share from the current 2% by end of 2010 and become a major player in the aviation sector, Paramount Airways is planning to acquire turboprops on lease to seamlessly connect smaller cities.
Considered to be the only profitable airline in the country, Paramount Airways is looking at maintaining or increasing its load factor beyond 85-90% by connecting smaller cities that are untapped with new turboprops.
Paramount Airways MD M Thiagarajan said, “We will start acquiring 8-10 turboprops on lease from February. We have not yet finalised the brand but has options such as ATR and Q400 of Bombardier. These turboprops will have capacity between 48 and 75 seats to cater to smaller cities across the country.”
“We see huge potential in the smaller cities especially the catchment areas which are untapped. Paramount wants to capture sizeable chunk of the business from the untouched area and the turboprops is ideally suited and will fetch us higher yields,” he added.
With the induction of turboprops, the company expects to cover 40 destinations by 2011-end as against the current 17 destinations and the number of flights per month is likely to go up to 3,000 from the present 1,900 a month.
