Low-cost airlines plan flights to small towns

Low-cost airlines operating in the domestic Indian aviation scene are planning to offer services connecting cities and places earlier ignored by major airlines and even by the Indian railways.

Start-up carriers including Kingfisher Airlines, Air Deccan and SpiceJet are exploring the possibilities of starting new services connecting smaller towns and cities.

While Kingfisher Airlines is planning to start a Baghdora-Guwahati service, Air Deccan is planning a service connecting Chandigarh to Jammu, eyeing the Mata Vaishnodevi temple-bound passengers.

Infact, the competition among the low-cost airlines seems to be resulting in an expansion of network offering better connectivity across India for passengers at reasonable fares.

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Vijay Mallya, chairman and managing director, King Fisher Airlines, said his airline aims to tap business and holiday travel segments concentrating on smaller cities which were so far ignored by major airlines.

Apart from the service from Baghdogra to Guwahati, Kingfisher is also planning to cover routes including Bangalore-Hyderabad, Kolkata-Guwahati and Kolkata-Hyderabad-Bangalore.

Air Deccan is planning to start a direct service from Chandigarh to Jammu targeting the Vaishnodevi devotees. An Air Deccan executive said that the airline was also planning to launch services to smaller towns such as Puttapurthi, Jamshedpur, Agatthi, Bellari and Mysore.

Other no-frill airlines too are expanding their network. SpiceJet is planning a service connecting Chennai and Hyderabad. This would take its operations to 11 cities across India and the number of daily flights to 38. At present, its flights operates from Delhi, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Goa, Pune,Bangalore, Kolkata, Jammu and Srinagar.

Madurai-based Paramount Airways is planning to double its flights to eight times a day from four times a day from November 2. It is also planning to start services to new destinations. Presently, the airlines offers four services including Coimbatore-Delhi, Delhi-Coimbatore, Delhi-Kochi and Kochi-Delhi.

The Wadia Group-promoted low cost airline Go Air has started its operations in Mumbai, Goa, Ahmedabad and Coimbatore. The airline will operate two flights a day each between Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Mumbai-Goa route and one flight a day in Mumbai-Coimbatore route.