Paramount Airways launches Delhi-Chennai flight

The airline also announced that it will, for the first time in India, would provide in-flight mobile facility on all its aircrafts from September this year.

"Our Delhi operations would connect most of the south Indian cities. Our plan is to have a national presence by 2010, with flights to major India cities including Jaipur, Lucknow, Chandigarh and others through sustained growth," Paramount Airways Managing Director M Thiagarajan said.

Apart from daily direct flights, the airline would also connect Delhi to Coimbatore, Madurai, Vizag, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram and Tiruchirapalli via Chennai.

The airline had recently started operations in eastern and north-eastern India to Kolkata, Guawahati and Agartala. Also it connects south India to Ahmedabad, Goa and Pune.

The Delhi-Chennai flight (I7-601), an Embraer 170 jet with a seating capacity of 75 passengers, would depart Chennai at 16.35 hours and reach Delhi at 18.55 hours, while on the return leg it will depart Delhi at 19.40 hours and reach Chennai at 21.55 hours.

The Chennai-based airline has priced its tickets "on the upper end of economy class fare". A Delhi-Chennai ticket would cost between Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000.

Thiagarajan said that his airline enjoys 27 per cent of market share in southern India and "is now set to repeat its successful business model for the Northern India operations."

"We believe in managed planned growth," he said.

The passengers would enjoy business class comforts at the cost of economy class fares with luxurious seats and varieties of gourmet cuisine, he added.

The airline, which has highest load factor even during this recession period, has planned to begin international operations by the end of next year.

"When the other airlines experienced the decrease in passenger load factor, our airlines has seen a surge in the number of passengers," Thiagarajan said.