Jagson group rolls out airline

The New Delhi-based Jagson group on Thursday launched its airline business.

Jagson Airlines, the new venture of the group, will kick start its commercial operations with the flight between Delhi and Bangalore in April. This full-service airline will cover Delhi, Bangalore, Patna, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Jaipur, Dibrugarh and Goa by 2006 end.

The private airline would initially invest Rs 250 crore (Rs 2.5 billion), which will be ramped up over the course of its operations.

Headquartered in Delhi, the group has a presence in multi-trading activity trading, offshore drilling in oil and gas, liquid cargo warehousing, global storage and retail distribution for petroleum products and e-commerce.

Jagson Airlines will be targeting economy class travellers and frequent flyers of full service airlines at competitive fares.

The airline will be acquiring 19 Airbus aircraft for its fleet. In the first few months, the airline has made provision to lease six aircraft.

The airline plans to employ over 800 people in the first year, ramp up to 1400 people in the second year and over 3000 by the end of the third year of operations.

Jagson has plans to cover cities such as Lucknow, Kochi and Hyderabad in their second phase of expansion.

The company is entering into a series of alliances and partnerships for ground handling, ticketing and aircraft maintenance.

According to Jagson Airlines president and CEO Uttam Kumar Bose, the airline has plans to make a focused difference in economy class travellers and earn their loyalty by constant innovation and changes that bring them packages that are specifically tailored to their pricing, in-flight and on-ground expectations.

"The backbone of domestic air travel has been the economy class business traveler or frequent flyers of full service airlines. However, they seem to have lost out on comfort, choice and service in the recasting of the airline business around low cost carriers," he pointed out.