Vistara spreads its wings to Bengaluru

Domestic carrier Vistara has added Bengaluru to its network and is all set to introduce two daily flights connecting the city to New Delhi and Mumbai, starting Tuesday.

"Bengaluru has always been on our radar. . . . It took us some time because we needed some more aircraft.

“Tomorrow we are connecting Bangalore with the capital of India -- New Delhi and commercial hub of India -- Mumbai," Vistara chief executive officer Phee Teik Yeoh told reporters in Bengaluru.

The city will be the 10th destination for the Tata-Singapore Airlines joint venture.

"We have grown our footprint very quickly in the span of less than six months," he added.

Vistara's network now offers 237 weekly flights connecting Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Bagdogra, Guwahati, Goa, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Mumbai and Pune.

Vistara said it will be adding three more aircrafts, taking the tally to nine by the end of this calendar year.

"Three brand new aircrafts will be added from September onwards. . . We have a commitment for 20 leased aircrafts from Bank of China Aviation, so we would have got nine by the end of the year and every year until 2018 we are going to get three to four aircrafts, bringing the total to 20 by 2018. . . all aircrafts are brand new A320 Sharklets," Yeoh said.

He further said: "There will be few more points we will be adding when we get the three aircrafts.

“We will also be looking at increasing the frequencies of some of the destinations."

To a query on funding, Yeoh said, "$100 million is still adequate, we are unfazed by the situation in first two three months, we have got good demand for the new flights that we are launching. . . the demand has picked up very strongly.

"So we are encouraged and optimistic. . . "

Vistara is a 51:49 joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines and the two stakeholders had said they would put in a total investment of $100 million.