Coimbatore-based Paramount Airways, an all business class airline, will start operations to Kolkata by the end of this month.
Paramount Airways managing director, M Thiagarajan, met West Bengal chief minister, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, in February and discussed its proposal to make Kolkata as its gateway to northeastern operations.
The airline would launch operations of daily flights in the Chennai-Kolkata route connecting Guwahati and Agartala by the last week of April. There would be direct flights between Kolkata-Guwahati, Guwahati-Agartala and Agartala-Kolkata apart from Chennai-Kolkata in the beginning. Destinations like Silchar and Dibrugarh in Assam could be added later. "The airline plans to cover all major cities in the western region by 2009 and start operations in the north and north-eastern regions from 2010 onwards",Thiagarajan said.
While the earlier plan was to connect Kolkata and the other North-Eastern destinations with its southern hub Chennai towards the end of 2010, the plan was altered to start two-three daily flights to Kolkata from mid-2009, Thiagarajan had said during his earlier visit to the city.
With a 27 per cent share in the south, the airline would start direct flights between other southern destinations and Kolkata subsequently depending on passenger demand. Initially, it would start operating flights following a hub-and-spoke model with Chennai as the transit for other southern cities. The airline charges fares that are around 7-10 per cent higher than an economy class fare of other airlines, offering business class facilities, in turn, to its customers.