GoAir to spread wings to three more cities from April 3

GoAir, the low-cost airline promoted by Wadia group, would operate flights to three more cities from April 3 and is planning to have 4-6 aircraft per base.

The new destinations to be serviced from April 3 would include Chennai-Delhi, Mumbai-Delhi, Mumbai-Srinagar and Srinagar-Jammu. At present, it covers 11 cities with 20 flights. From April 3, it would cover 14 cities with a total of 28 daily flights.

Announcing its marketing campaign 'The GoAir Challenge' Jeh Wadia, managing director, GoAir, said Mumbai and Chennai routes offered huge potential and the fare for Chennai-Delhi daily services would be announced in the next couple of days.

He added the airline was bullish on the future and it would not have any problem in sustaining the low fares. GoAir is already flying on key routes such as Chennai-Pune, Chennai-Hyderabad and Mumbai-Coimbatore.

Wadia said the airline was planning to have 4-6 aircraft per base as the ministry of civil aviation was looking at increasing the parking space for aircraft in airports.

"We have space for two aircraft in Mumbai airport, one in Chennai and two in Delhi. Chennai is likely to have space for one more aircraft and in Delhi, we hope to increase it for four aircraft," he added.

Referring to its 'GoAir Challenge' campaign, he said the airline had come out with the offer to reassure the passengers that GoAir fares were the lowest.

According to GoAir Challenge, if a customer flying on any domestic airline gets a better fare than a GoAir customer on routes/sectors GoAir operates in, the company would adjust double the difference between the fare of the GoAir ticket sold to the customer and the fare of the other airline as credit, which can be used to purchase GoAir tickets.

Asked about the funding for the acquisition of 20 Airbus aircraft (order is worth about Rs 5340 crore), he said that it would be done through a combination of equity, debt and sale and lease options. Its current fleet size is three Airbur aircraft and plans to add five more Airbus aircraft by this year end, 10 more by December 2007 and 15 more by December 2008. Its pilot strength is 68, including the 20 pilots from US and Europe. The total staff strength is 300-plus.

He added that the low cost and full service airlines can co-exist in view of the massive growth potential in the country. "We are confident that the passengers travelling by train and Volvo luxury buses, as well as the price-sensitive air travellers can be lured to travel by GoAir. Train passengers are our key target base, as about 15 million people were travelling by train every day," he said.

The Wadia Group is planning to invest in engineering and cargo operations. Both these operations are likely to run as independent businesses and won't come under GoAir. A final decision in this regard is expected to be taken in the next one month, he added.

Wadia also said GoAir would be the official carrier of the cricket teams of India and England to various locations during the one-day series between both the sides from April 1-16. The company would offer some tickets to public to travel with cricketers, he added.