When major airlines like Go First and Spicejet are facing trouble, the regional airline Star Air based in Bengaluru is spreading its wings high. In December, it signed an agreement with Nordic Aviation Capital to take on lease four Embraer E175 aircraft (seating capacity of 76) to connect more destinations. It took delivery of two and another two before September. The airline owns five Embraer E145 aircraft (50 seat capacity).

On Saturday, the aviation arm of Maharashtra-based Sanjay Ghodawat Group, began operations on the Bangalore-Hyderabad-Jamnagar route with an Embraer E175 jet. On Monday, it will launch a service to Jaipur with the Bangalore-Belgavi-Jaipur route.

“We will add three more routes,” the airline’s CEO Simran Singh Tiwana told newspersons at the Bengaluru airport on Saturday before Star Air’s flight take off to Hyderabad. He did not give the names of the new destinations.

“We got two new aircraft and will add one each in July and September, respectively,” he added.

The funding is through internal accruals of the group, which owns 100 per cent of the airline. There is no plan to raise funds this year. “For expansion, we might consider it but not this year,” he said.

This financial year, Tiwana said the airline would carry twice the number of passengers over last fiscal, in which 2.45 lakh passengers were flown. Cumulatively, the airline has carried 6.20 lakh passengers, he added.

The average ticket pricing is around ₹5,600. The airline has occupancy of around 86 per cent. In some routes, the airline makes money at 65 per cent load level, while in some it may be at only 80-85 per cent. That’s the dynamic of Indian aviation. On new routes, the airline will first experiment with smaller aircraft and build the capacity with the larger one, he said.

Star Air commenced commercial flight operations in January 2019. It currently operates a fleet of five Embraer E145 and two E175 aircraft from its two operational bases, Bengaluru and Belagavi to 16 destinations, including Ahmedabad, Ajmer (Kishangarh), Indore and Jodhpur.

When asked if problems with Go First would impact others, Tiwana said Go First is doing a good job in protecting itself and its employees.

Unexplored destinations

“We are not eating in to anybody’s market share. We are getting in to unexplored sectors. The Bangalore-Hyderabad-Jamnagar is an example of a non-Udan route. With the new aircraft, the idea is to operate in non-Udan sectors. By the end of the year, nearly 20 per cent will be non-Udan routes. Some of the Udan routes will also mature,” he said.

When we started in 2018, Belgavi in Karnataka used to have only one flight - every alternate day to Bangalore. Today, Star Air connects it to nine stations. It is a similar story in Kishangarh in Rajasthan. There was only one flight to Delhi but today Star Air provides to three stations.

“Jamnagar had only one flight to Mumbai. We connected to both Bangalore and Hyderabad. Slightly longer distance travel, air has become the preferred choice,” he said.

“In India, starting a new airline is possible. Anywhere in the world, I would doubt it because regional travel is totally untapped. The next five years will give a 5X rise in regional air travel,” he added.

(The writer travelled on board Star Air’s Embraer E175 from Bangalore to Hyderabad with the airline sponsoring the trip)

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