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BY A CORRESPONDENT Here comes another
budget flier to spice up the Indian skies! Royal
Airways has announced its plan to enter Indian
aviation by May 2005. The carrier will be called
SpiceJet.
The new discount carrier is expected to heat up
competition for the current no-frill leader Air
Deccan and other aspirants.
Formerly Modiluft, Royal Airways India plans to
tap the budget traveller. Demand for cheap air
travel is surging in India. SpiceJet has signed an
agreement to lease a set of three Boeing 737-800s
to start with.
Bogged down by litigation and financial
probelsm, Royal, one of the first Indian airliners
to take to skies had discontinued operations after
a run-in with Lufthansa in 1996.Shares in the
Royal Airways scrip have doubled in the last one
year.
Meanwhile, budget carrier leader Air Deccan is
gung-ho with its future plans. It recently
announced plans to acquire 15 ATR 72-500
turbo-props and lease 15 more as part of a plan to
expand its fleet by over 4 times in 5 years.
Moreover,
Kingfisher Airlines has inked a signed a $1.8
billion deal to buy 30 A320 jets from Airbus and
expects to start operations by April-end.
As if the in-house competition is not enough,
the company British budget carrier Virgin Atlantic
is keen on entering Indian air space. Virgin's
Richard Branson has gone on record with his
ambitions for the Indian market. Virgin's talks
with Air Deccan for a joint venture fell through last year.
BY A CORRESPONDENT |
