New Delhi: Starting a new airline from scratch is not an easy task in India. Fixing one that's almost reached the brink is even less so. Ajay Singh, former promoter of SpiceJet and now in control of the Gurgaon-headquartered airline, is grappling with many imponderables - including oil prices - and is finding the going anything but smooth.
Consider what he has on his plate. To start with, he has to convince the lessors who have been threatening to take back their aircraft not to do so - a total of 11 planes have been under threat of withdrawal owing to previous defaults on payments. Some lessors have even taken the airline to court and Singh has been, with some success, spending an inordinate amount of time sorting this issue out.
Next, he has to reduce the number of stations and increase frequencies to those that remain. When Singh took charge, the airline was flying to 39 stations. That has now been brought down to 31 and by the time the winter schedule kicks in, it should be down to 25. Frequencies, however, to these stations will be increased; so the overall operations will grow, not shrink. Stations with single flights such as Indore and Surat have been weeded out. The aim is to have a minimum of four flights per station eventually.
14/04/15 Anjuli Bhargava/Business Standard
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Consider what he has on his plate. To start with, he has to convince the lessors who have been threatening to take back their aircraft not to do so - a total of 11 planes have been under threat of withdrawal owing to previous defaults on payments. Some lessors have even taken the airline to court and Singh has been, with some success, spending an inordinate amount of time sorting this issue out.
Next, he has to reduce the number of stations and increase frequencies to those that remain. When Singh took charge, the airline was flying to 39 stations. That has now been brought down to 31 and by the time the winter schedule kicks in, it should be down to 25. Frequencies, however, to these stations will be increased; so the overall operations will grow, not shrink. Stations with single flights such as Indore and Surat have been weeded out. The aim is to have a minimum of four flights per station eventually.
14/04/15 Anjuli Bhargava/Business Standard
