JOIN USThe civil aviation sector in the country may appear to be in the doldrums owing to the SpiceJet crisis, but the new airline Vistara’s launch on January 9, 2015, comes at the right time for the airline.
Though the sector is facing turbulence, Vistara could try to tap the market space, which has opened up with SpiceJet reducing the number of its flights amid growing demand.
Another positive point is that there is only a narrow gap between the fares of low-cost carriers and full service ones like Vistara.
Initially, the airline will have services between Delhi and Mumbai, Delhi-Ahmedabad and Mumbai-Ahmedabad. As per the flight schedule on its website, Vistara will have four services between Delhi and Mumbai and three on the Mumbai-Delhi route. It will also have one flight each between Delhi and Ahmedabad and vice versa. The economy class ticket on the Delhi-Mumbai first flight on January 9 would cost Rs 11,253, premium economy class at Rs 22,797 and business class at Rs 32,347.
Vistara is the first Indian full-service carrier to introduce the ‘Premium Economy’ class and its 148-seater A320-200 will offer three separate cabins, with 16 seats in Business, 36 in Premium Economy and 96 in Economy Class.
The airline has already taken delivery of two Airbus 320s on lease and plan to have five aircraft in its fleet by March next year. Vistara may also become an immediate beneficiary of the scrapping of a rule that brings the international operations of an Indian airline under stringent conditions. The government has made it clear that it wants to do away with the rule, popularly known as 5/20, that wants an airline to complete five years of domestic operations and having a fleet of 20 aircraft.
If this rule is scrapped, Vistara can straight away start foreign operations. However, rival airlines are lobbying against the scrapping of such a rule.