GoAir Chandigarh, Amritsar, Bangalore flights launched

GoAir has added three more destinations, Amritsar, Bangalore and Chandigarh, to its services, increasing its total number of destinations to 11. ”For the summer schedule, starting this weekend, three new routes will be opened– Amritsar and Chandigarh in the North and Bangalore in the South– taking the major destinations served by the airline to 11,” GoAir CEO Edgardo Badiali said.

GoAir will introduce direct morning and evening Mumbai – Bangalore flights. It will offer connecting flights from Bangalore to Amritsar via Mumbai and Delhi, and Bangalore to Cochin and Ahmedabad.

Badiali also said that GoAir will launch connecting direct flights between Amritsar, Delhi, and Mumbai. It will connect Amritsar to Goa via Delhi.

Along with new destinations GoAir has also increased the number of connections and now the total number of weekly services provided by GoAir is 474.

Announcing the induction of new A320 aircraft, Badiali said that two new aircraft will be inducted in June 2009, and another two in November and December 2009 this year, taking the fleet size of GoAir to ten.

Badiali also said that 10 more aircraft will be added by the end of 2012 at the cost of $400 million, increasing the fleet size to 20.

“The funding for the first 10 aircraft has already been made while we are exploring options for finance for purchasing 10 others,” he said.

The total number aircraft in GoAir’s fleet will be eight by June 2009. Since the aircraft are new, the average age of the GoAir fleet will be about 7 months.

GoAir said that it will provide business class facilities, with free food and better seating arrangements, at economy fare rates, according to reports.

”For short haul flight, the minimum ticket charge would be Rs 1950 as surcharge, Rs 228 as service charge and Rs 200 as user development fee,” Badiali added.

Badiali claimed that he expects GoAir to break even by the end of fiscal 2009-2010, and to touch a load factor of 75%.

GoAir also clarified that reports about its merger with SpiceJet were untrue. “We are not looking at any kind of consolidation or merger with SpiceJet or any other airline. It’s one of many rumours,” Badiali said.