Vistara says first overseas routes will include South Asia

The first set of routes that it will launch internationally will be the routes that can be flown by its existing aircraft, the A320s, which will be routes within three, three-and-a-half hours of India

Vistara, which was in the forefront to get the 5/20 rule partially scrapped, said on Wednesday, it "will not be rushing into international operations" and that something towards this is "unlikely before June 2018", when it will get the delivery of the 20th aircraft.

"We are not rushing into international operations. It's not a race for us. But we will definitely do it. We will get the delivery of our 20th plane by the first half of 2018.

"So, with the government retaining the 20-plane clause for international operations, I think we will be able to take a call only after that. Of course, we are reviewing and refining our international strategy," Vistara chief strategy and commercial officer Sanjiv Kapoor told PTI on Wednesday.

Kapoor, who joined the Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines promoted Vistara only recently, further said their international operations will begin with the Saarc markets and the Gulf as their present set of planes (A320s) could serve short-haul markets the best.

Kapoor, who was here to launch a co-branded credit card with Axis Bank, also said the airline, which has only 11 aircraft at present, will get the delivery of two more A320s by October.

"The first set of routes that we will launch internationally, will be the routes that can be flown by our existing aircraft (A320s which are narrow body planes by Airbus) which will be routes within three, three-and-a-half hours from our Delhi hub," Kapoor said.

"So, that means South Asian nations will be our first focus international destinations along with the Gulf," he said, adding markets like Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and even Afghanistan have great potential.

He said Pakistan is of course the largest market, but that is not likely to happen given the relations between the two nations.

Last month, the government had partially scrapped the contentious 5/20 rule, which mandated an airline to have five years of domestic operational experience and 20 planes to become eligible for international operations, by removing the five years of domestic operational experience clause.

The new rules came in despite strong opposition and hectic lobbying by older rivals such as Jet Airways, Spicejet and Indigo.

Under the new rules, domestic airlines can fly overseas provided they deploy 20 aircraft or 20 per cent of their capacity in the domestic market, whichever is higher.

It can be noted that the newest airline Vistara and the budget carrier AirAsia India were behind the campaign to end the 5/20 rule. Now they are speeding up their fleet expansion so they can fly overseas sooner and compete with local rivals Jet Airways and state-owned Air India.

Earlier this month, Vistara chief executive Phee Teik Yeoh had said that the airline was readying a long-term plan for starting international operations and that he would meet the board with a plan within the next two months.

"There is no stopping us from preponing our aircraft deliveries, but we would like to go overseas only when we are ready. It's not about to be the first, or the earliest, and not so much about how fast we go. I don't see how all this can be done in the next 9-12 months. Easily, it's a minimum one-year affair," Yeoh had said earlier this month.

Yeoh had also said advancing the plane delivery is something that he would not rule out.

"Advancing just to go overseas is not good enough. We should not lose sight of the fact that we have domestic operations to run," he had said.

He had further said that the airline would induct wide-bodied, long-haul planes and consider starting direct flights to Britain and the US.

Vistara, which started operations on January 9, 2015, connects 17 cities now and Port Blair will be the 18th destination from October, Kapoor said on Wednesday.

Kapoor also said the airline has been witnessing steady increase in its loads factor, which is amongst the highest now at 90 per cent economy class and 80 per cent for overall three seating configuration.

Vistara is the only airline in the country that offers a three-class configuration with the economy, the premium economy and the business class, he said.

Photograph: Kind courtesy, Airbus