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Visa Air to start flying within 40 days

A new Indian domestic airline, Visa Airways, plans to begin flying within 40 days, providing service to unserved and under-served smaller cities near Bombay, its top executive said on Friday.

Visa Airways will begin operating "in another month to 40 days," initially providing service from Bombay to just two cities, Pune and Nashik, said Capt Vivek Sane, the executive chairman of the start-up airline.

Visa Air will provide twice-a-day service to both destinations, using 37-seat Dash 8 Series 100 turboprop aircraft made by Bombadier Aerospace of Canada.

"We are in the process of completing the infrastructure," Sane said. "We are hoping to get all the maintenance items in the next several weeks. The moment the spares and components get in, the aircraft will follow."

Sane said the airline would begin operating with two aircraft, add a third within 45 days and two more within three to four months as it expands service to more destinations, operating out of two hubs.

Within three months Visa Air plans to be flying to four more cities -- Surat, Ahmedabad, Rajkot and Bhavnagar.

By the end of March it plans to expand by launching services from another hub, India's technology capital of Bangalore, to four destinations in southern India -- Coimbatore, Tirupati, Cochin and Madurai, Sane said.

Visa Airways will be only the fourth domestic carrier in India, the world's second most populous nation with over a billion people.

Domestic air travel is now dominated by just two airlines -- state-run Indian Airlines and privately owned Jet Airways. The third air carrier is tiny Sahara Airlines, a primarily regional airline with just eight aircraft.

Staff, funding

Sane said the Visa Airways already had 38 staff, including six pilots and five maintenance engineers.

He said another 50 people had been trained for jobs such as security guards and ticketing staff and were ready to begin work when the airline starts flying.

When asked about the level of start-up funding, Sane said it was in line with the airline's feasibility study which estimated about $1.0 million per aircraft is needed.

He said the money had been raised from a small group of Indian investors living in the country and abroad.

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