Bird Air keen to make Regional Foray

Within 72 hours of the Government announcing the new concept of regional airlines, at least one Group — Bird Air Services Pvt Ltd — has shown interest in venturing into it.

“We are examining the feasibility of starting a regional airline based out of Delhi which would primarily serve the two and three tier cities in the region. We already have a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for launching fixed wing non-schedule aircraft operation and could convert that permit into a regional airline permit,” the Group Executive Director, Mr. Ankur Bhatia, told Business Line.

The company plans to launch services from Delhi connecting various State capitals apart from commercially important cities like Jammu and Amritsar.

“The idea would be to operate multiple frequency flights in the region. We expect most of the flights to be for less than 45 minutes. So at the moment there would be no food service on the proposed airline,” Mr. Bhatia added.

Launch plan

The airline plans to take to the skies in the next 12-18 months by when the infrastructure bottlenecks currently being witnessed at Delhi airport would have eased, he said.

The proposal of the Bird group and the possible chance for several other entrepreneurs that have been given No Objection certificates by the Government to set up airlines, could be just one reason that the Government announced the regional airline concept on Thursday.

“The idea is to facilitate demand. There is so much unused infrastructure within the country that can be utilized by regional airlines. The biggest benefit of the new proposal is that it does away with the route dispersal guidelines that other national airlines have to adhere to,” the Minister for Civil Aviation, Mr. Paul Patel, said.

Flying non-metros

But if the concept is of regional airlines why have they been allowed to fly between non-metro cities? The Secretary Civil Aviation, Mr. Ashok Chula, pointed out that the decision was taken consciously so as not to hamper the growth of such airlines.

“If an airline wants to fly between Delhi and Chandigarh and also between Delhi and Ranchi then they could face a problem if we stuck to the concept of allowing an airline to fly only in one region. It was therefore decided that they would be allowed to fly throughout the country as long as they don’t touch one metro city in their region. The only exception is in South India where there are three metro cities,” Mr. Chula said.

Getting slots

Those planning to make use of regional airline concept to operate several daily flights from metros to non-metro cities could run up against the problem of getting slots.

“If a regional or any other airline can get a slot at a capacity-constrained airport, the Government has no problem about them operating flights.

“The key issue is whether there would be slots in major metros for regional airlines after the national airlines have exhausted their daily quota of flights. This is not a problem in smaller airports to which regional airlines would operate,” argued an official.