AirDeccan set to spread wings

AirDeccan, the country's first "low-cost no-frills" airline, which commenced operations in August this year, has decided to expand its fleet and start long-haul flights.

As a result, it has just initiated talks with Boeing and Airbus to lease 4 aircraft. AirDeccan will also double its fleet of ATR 42-320, which has been leased from French-based chartered flight manufacturing major, ATR.

By April 2004, the fleet size will increase from 6 to 12 aircraft and this will translate into nearly 75 flights a day.

G R Gopinath, managing director, said, "All cities and towns that are within a travel time of 1 to 1.2 hr will continue to be catered by the ATRs. Even if we were to use jet planes for these routes, there will not be much difference in travel time as these bigger planes take longer time to turnaround, take off as well as descend. Therefore, we plan to lease Boeing or Airbus to use them for all longer routes. These jets ascend to about 40,000 ft and fly at nearly 1.8 times the speed of ATR."

The Bangalore-Mumbai service will begin with existing ATRs from the next month. While this route may be taken by Boeing or Airbus aircraft, other routes to be taken by these jet planes include Bangalore-Delhi, Mumbai-Delhi among others.

Another important reason for continuing to use ATRs for short routes are the airports which have a shorter runway length.

The ATR fleet expansion was part of the original agreement signed with ATR and the details of the talk with Boeing or Airbus is still at a nascent stage.

The company had obtained its first two ATR 42-320 in mid-2003 from ATR. These 48-seater aircraft had been bought on dry lease for a five year period at a cost of nearly $ 70,000 per month.

Though the day-to-day inspection of these aircraft is being carried out by the company itself, ATR would look into the overall maintenance of the aircraft.

In case of an emergency, AirDeccan already has parts worth $ 3 million onsite, and as per the terms of the agreement, it has access to parts worth $ 20 million in Toulouse (France), which will be flown within 48 hours during the time of need.

Gopinath is confident that AirDeccan would register a turnover of Rs 250 crore by December 2004. This will come from commercial operation of all 12 ATRs.