The Hindu Business Line : IndiGo set to fly in July-August — Low fares but no meals to be offered

"We will be airborne anytime between July 1 and August 5 this year. We have decided to start the airline with purchased aircraft instead of leased aircraft as was planned earlier," the airline's newly appointed President and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Bruce Ashby, told Business Line.

In June last year, the airline ordered 100 Airbus A-320 family of aircraft at the Paris air show. The Airbus A-320 family includes the Airbus A-319, A-321 and A-320 aircraft.

While the first of these aircraft is to arrive in July-August, the airline plans to acquire six more this year and increase the fleet strength to about 15 by 2007. "It is more than likely that the first 20-25 aircraft that we acquire will be Airbus A-320's," Mr Ashby said. IndiGo's first base would be in Delhi.

The airline will offer no in-flight entertainment or meal service apart from beverages. "We are open to the idea of snack items being served. However, it would be impossible for us to offer low fares if we have to deliver hot food to the aircraft," Mr Ashby said.

Lower fares: However, IndiGo does promise airfares that would be substantially lower than legacy airlines and similar to what some of the existing low-cost airlines are charging at present.

At present, the airline is working on finalising the routes to operate on although it plans to have regular flights from metro cities to intermediary points.

"This opens up a host of opportunities for us and we could offer flights between say Delhi-Indore-Chennai or Delhi-Ahmedabad-Mumbai. During the first few months, we plan to offer flights to at least a dozen metro cities and intermediary points. Besides, we will also look at operating flights to cities that do not have air connections right now," Mr Ashby said.

Initially, the airline plans to sell its tickets through call centres and the Internet.