| It
is not that suddenly there is activity in the regional space. Some of these airlines
have been waiting for the nod by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) for quite
some time. The Ashok Gajapathi Raju Ministry has given the no-objection certificate
to six airlines, three of which are going to be national and the other three regional.
Once the Ministry issues NOC, the airline promoters then have to approach the
Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the aviation regulator, for an airline
licence, a process that is supposed to take three months. These airlines include
Air One Aviation Pvt Ltd, Zexus Air and Premier Air (national license) and Turbo
Megha, Air Carnival and Zav Airways (regional licence). Metro
Connectivity To encourage regional airlines and expand regional connectivity,
the Ministry, it is reported, is toying with the idea of allowing regional airlines
to operate flights on high density and high revenue routes to help them offset
their losses incurred on low revenue routes, a move that will certainly benefit
carriers such as Air Costa and Air Pegasus. Presently, regional carriers are not
allowed to connect more than two metro cities while they can connect any number
of regional destinations or non-trunk routes. A regional airline can connect one
metro destination in the state it is operating in and the other metro destination
could be in a nearby state and but, there is an exception in South India where
they can connect to the three metro cities of Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Air Costa which took the lead is already connected to the three metro cities
in South in all nine destinations. Air Costa has been having a fairly successful
run having announced operational profits in January this year. It operates four
Embraer jets, two each Embraer E-170 and E-190 and has announced plans to acquire
four more E-Jets this year and connect cities such as Bhubaneswar, Lucknow, Varanasi,
Chandigarh, Indore and Pune from southern India. It is also exploring possibility
of connecting Delhi. Unlike Air Costa, which is flying Embraer E-Jets known
for their comfortable seating – two seats on each side of the aisle (no middle
seat) and ample leg room – Air Pegasus has opted for a turboprop aircraft – AT
R 72. Though the turboprop is said to be fuel and cost-efficient on short haul
flights, there is a perceived notion among the flying public that it is an old
aircraft, running on blades. Air Pegas us, Airline
of the South Air Pegasus, the Airline of the South, has one AT R aircraft
and is promoted by Decor Aviation of Shyson Thomas. Decor Aviation has been a
leading ground handling agent in India present at 11 major airports across the
country. It has expertise in cargo handling, aircraft maintenance, passenger handling
and facilitation services, executive aviation handling, fuelling, load and trim
services, baggage handling and ramp handling services. With this background, the
next logical move for Shyson Thomas was to start an airline. Shyson Thomas,
Managing Director, is very clear on his plan. “Positioning of regional airline
is not by chance, it is by choice,” he said in a recent interaction with India
Strategic,while underscoring the potential that exists in operating the
under-served regions. For that there is no need of a huge aircraft as it certainly
does not make business sense. Air Pegasus is using AT R 72-500, a twin-engine
turboprop short-haul regional airliner, with a seating capacity of 74 in a single-class
configuration. The new airline has announced destinations of Bangalore, Hubballi
and Thiruvananthapuram to begin with and next on the destination map are Puducherry,
Cuddapah and Agatti. It is also looking at Kozhikode, Kochi and other destinations
in south India. Thomas is pegging on the unserved and under-served markets.
According to him there are four stages (connectivity-wise) in an airline operation
– international, national, regional and regional city-pair density. Presently,
only four per cent connectivity is there beyond the large airports in the region.
It does not make sense for larger aircraft to ply on these smaller routes due
to limited traffic and even if an airline is connected to smaller cities, the
flight timings are such that a passenger has to adjust to the timings than the
other way round. It is this need gap which the airline intends to plug. He says
Air Pegasus is a regional airline designed specifically for the regional travelling
needs – with higher connectivity, smaller aircraft, better timings and more flights.
“There are many ways to select an airline. From competitive fares to favourable
timings to unparalleled service to efficiency to on-time-performance, we offer
all that plus one additional feature – our passion to make travel accessible to
everyone and every place in South India.” Conducive
Environment No doubt, the journey for Air Pegasus and other start-ups is
going to be a tough one but then it is hoped that the Government would make the
regional environment lot more conducive for new players to operate in. The Government
has already got in a place a regional and remote air connectivity policy as it
understands how networking the region would accelerate the pace of economic growth.
Andhra Pradesh has announced that it has reduced the value-added tax on Aviation
Turbine Fuel (AT F) and so has Telangana. Air Pegasus commenced operations from
Bangalore to Hubballi with fares of `1,234 from April 12. The question that aviation
experts have been asking is – is the route financially viable considering that
the distance between Bangalore and Hubballi is about 410 km by road and time taken
would be less than six hours and by train it takes about eight hours (AC fare
is `630). Air Pegasus flight duration is one hour 15 minutes and the check-in
time is about two hours prior to departure. About three hours have to be factored
in. Also experts say while the airfare is reasonable, the taxi fare to the airport
costs not less than `1,000 from the city centre. Either the airline should offer
dedicated shuttle services or cut flying time to make it more attractive. It needs
to be seen what the response to Bangalore-Hubballi has been. The CEO of
CAPA, South Asia, Kapil Kaul has said that the airline could face ‘viability challenges’
as a stand-alone entity due to pricing pressures in the market. “It is critical
for the airline to be well capitalised as the road to profitability is likely
to be long drawn and painful.” But, that should not deter entrepreneurs from venturing.
The third regional airline from south India, Turbo Megha Airways is expecting
to take delivery of two AT R aircraft, while it awaits nod from the DGCA. It is
founded by Vankayalapati Umesh and has the backing of Telugu superstar Ram Charan
Tej who will be its brand ambassador. The airline is to be called ‘TruJet’ and
proposes to connect Vijayawada, Tirupati, Rajahmundry, Bangalore and Aurangabad
in the first phase. The southern skies will have Air Costa, Air Pegasus,
FlyEasy, and TruJet crisscrossing the region and it is believed that it will further
spur economic growth in the region and give a major fillip to regional aviation. | 
