After a market study of close to eight months, Zoom Air, India’s newest premium scheduled commuter airline launched its inaugural flight between Delhi and Durgapur. Koustav Dhar, Chief Executive Officer and Director and an 18-year-old aviation veteran who has worked with Air Sahara, Jagson and MDLR met with the media to outline the airline’s plans. Excerpts:
Given the unrealistic fares in the Indian market and the fact that the airline is starting operations within days of getting the permit, when airlines normally market their routes for at least six months before starting, how do you plan to survive?
The team has been very smart and for the past six months, has been into social media – which we found a better platform than going in for huge hoardings or brick and mortar advertising. We have more than 4 lakh followers between Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. When the inaugural flight was taking off we got almost 1.75 lakh hits in the last one hour. That is the kind of following which we have created. We believe that through this we will reach a critical mass till we have a little bit of funding to do brick and mortar marketing.
This airline has the right kind of aircraft to do regional routes from a national hub which is Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata. Till date what we have seen is that Tier II and III operations are primarily out from the metros .... the timing is such that it suits a metro passenger to go into a Tier II and III city. What happens in the reverse is what we are looking at. We want the non-metro people to come in to the metros and go back at a convenient time. We will be going from Delhi to Chandigarh at about 7:30 pm.
What plans for South India?
We got delayed by two months due to the process of the Air Operators Permit. The aircraft are joining us from end of February till May. We are connecting six stations in the South. We are connecting Delhi-Tirupati into Vijaywada. The summer schedule starts from March 25 so post that.
Delhi-Tirupati is what we are connecting as of now. We are looking at Delhi-Tirupati-Vijawada. We would get into some more sectors. Hyderabad is very much there. We are planning Dehi-Kolkata-Durgapur-Hyderabad. All of them will be daily fights. In the summer schedule we plan to use four aircraft which means we should be operating about 30 flights a day. We are starting with one aircraft and by February 28 the second aircraft will come in.
Is Zoom being provided any concessions to operate to Durgapur
The concessions here are standard Viability Gap Funding concessions that are advantages on landing, parking and fuel subsidy. Besides, we have an agreement with the airport operator that if the seats are not sold we get covered for that.
Who are the promoters of the airline?
Zoom Air has three directors, Ravi Singh, Ramesh Duggal and myself. It is our own equity that has gone into the company. We are the directors and shareholders of the company.
What about plans of raising more money?
We will be looking to raise about ₹20-25 crore for expansion for the remaining aircraft. We are looking at equity; preferably equity, as till now it has been a debt-free company. If there is debt, we will have to see. We have not approached banks or anyone else as of now.