Air India's low-cost arm to fly limited domestic routes

Air India Express, the low-cost international subsidiary of Air India (the new carrier being formed by merging Air-India with Indian Airlines), has finalised plans to fly limited domestic routes in the southern and eastern sectors.

Starting this October, Air India Express will fly Cochin-Chennai, Cochin-Hyderabad, Cochin-Bangalore, Bangalore-Chennai, Chennai-Kolkata, Hyderabad-Kolkata and Kolkata-Agartala.

"These services will be point-to-point domestic services and not seamless operations to international destinations. We have plans to start daily services on the Cochin-Bangalore-Chennai route later," said an official spokesperson.

The airline already has 11 weekly domestic flights from Calicut (3), Cochin (3), Chennai (3) and Delhi (2) to Mumbai. These are operated to fill empty seats enroute to an international destination or after a routine maintenance stop. The new southern and eastern sectors will increase the number of domestic flights to 50.

"We have carefully chosen routes on which the current Indian Airlines has limited or no operations. We cannot end up competing with the parent airline," the spokesman said.

Indian Airlines has more operations in north and west India. Most of the domestic routes on which Air India Express is planning to venture has one daily Indian Airlines flight. "Routes like these have scope for a double daily flight and that is where our flights will be introduced," said the spokesperson.

Domestic route rationalisation between the full-service carrier and its low-cost subsidiary was one of the factors that delayed the merger. Air India Express also has a small fleet that precludes larger domestic operations.

"At present, we plan to use only two 737-800s from our current fleet of 14 737s, which are primarily meant for long-haul travel. Further domestic operations will have to wait until we get more aircraft suitable for such operations," said a company executive.

The airline's fleet is slated to increase to 25 by 2009 and talks are also on for buying smaller aircraft like Bombardiers for regional operations.