The Hindu Business Line : Air Deccan to begin trunk route operations on July 16

THE era of low-cost flying on domestic trunk routes is set to dawn on July 16 this year. The country's only low-cost airline, Air Deccan, has fixed July 16 as the date for the launch of its operations on trunk routes.

"We have frozen the launch date as July 16. The inaugural flight will be on the Bangalore-Delhi-Bangalore sector. Besides, the airline also plans to offer flights between other metro cities, including Delhi-Mumbai and Chennai-Bangalore," the airlines Managing Director, Capt. G.R. Gopinath, told Business Line.

The airline, which announced the acquisition of Airbus A-320 aircraft at the Singapore air show earlier this year for launching its trunk route operations, hopes to be able to offer 20 flights a day when all the three Airbus aircraft arrive.

While the first of the three Airbus A-320 aircraft was scheduled to arrive in India around June 25, the other two aircraft were expected in early July, Capt. Gopinath said.

The aircraft being acquired by the airline are less than five years old and would be able to seat 180 passengers in an all-economy-class cabin. On the issue of what fares would be charged on the trunk routes, he said that a firm decision on this would be taken within a week. The airline has already indicated that its fares would be 40-50 per cent less than the existing fare level.

While Air Deccan is working towards starting low-cost operations on the trunk routes, the three major domestic airlines that are operating on the trunk routes, including Indian Airlines, Jet Airways and Air Sahara, have no immediate plans of launching low-cost airlines.

At present, Air Deccan operates ATR aircraft on regional routes and charges much less than the major players.