‘Air travel will continue to grow for the next 30 to 50 years’

I wish I had a juicy answer that, I was sitting under a tree and an apple fell on my head but sadly, it isn’t the case. I’ve had a career in aviation, so aviation is in my blood right now and where this came from was the fact that the industry was suffering because of Covid but our founding team had this very strong belief that it was going to be temporary and in the long term the aviation industry would bounce back, whether six months or three years. Our thought was that air travel would continue to grow for another thirty to fifty years and the second thought was that it was very important to have a strong mode of transport. For the country and economy to grow, it needs a strong network of transport including road, rail, water or air. That is also the reason for us to be here and participate in the growth journey of this country. We thought that if we were to start an airline which was professionally run, with a strong cost structure, which was well capatalised and with a professionally managed team from day one that we could build an airline that would last for decades. 

In India there are several people who haven’t travelled by air. We like the process of democratising air travel that was started seventy years ago. We thought that why should ‘time’ for someone who is less fortunate be less valuable than someone who has more money? And the reason I say that is because there are people in this country who travel for 24 to 36 hours by bus to their destination in each direction instead of the same time they can spend what they actually want to do. 

We certainly approached Mr. Jhunjhunwala. He is a legendary investor who has an amazing track record in both the public and private sectors. It’s no secret that we started putting our founding team in late 2020. We filed for NOC in Jan 2021 and when it came to raising capital there was no better person than Mr. Jhunjhunwala. Our pitch was the same which is that India has an amazing future, the middle class is growing, disposable income is growing, Covid is just a blip. Also, you’ve heard him say so much about the industry. If there is anyone who is more gung-ho in India, it’s him. So, he is bullish about India’s growth, and so is the team. More so, air travel is going to grow. If you set up an airline correctly from day one, it could not only be a good service for the country but also provide a lot of shareholder value. It’s not only the capital that matters, it’s also the quality of the capital that matters. 

We’re well capitalised but having said that we believe that remaining well capatalised is an important point for any airline’s success but if we need to raise more capital in the future we will be happy to without hesitation. At this point we do not have any plan. At least till the launch we may not raise funds. 

We want to look at our trajectory, and follow the path we have charted for ourselves. The path includes the first flight in May-end or early June. 18 aircraft by year-end and after that scheduled delivery of 12 aircraft every year till we get to 72. 

Cargo is going to grow for sure. It is linked with the growth of the Indian economy. The one thing I would caution people is that there are two phenomena. There is a short-term view because of Covid and there is a long-term view. Clearly, there was a lot of e-commerce activity and lesser passenger traffic, hence there was a lot of growth in the cargo segment. My view is that we will see a lot of e-commerce activity happening. However, the kind of numbers that were associated with cargo during Covid, we may not see that kind of numbers. There will be growth but it will be tied to capacity growth. We’re also excited because the aircraft we have has huge cargo capacity.