Star Air starts flights from Pune to Hyderabad via Bengaluru

The Pune-Bengaluru-Hyderabad flight would not be operational over the weekend. The flight would depart Pune at 1845 and land in Hyderabad via Bengaluru at 2010.

Founder and chairman of the group Sanjay Ghodawat said they have plans to start more routes from the city with the Pune-Kisangarh (Ajmer) and the Pune-Jodhpur routes to be made operational in the next two to three months. The four-year-old Star Air is currently operating on 18 routes, of which 15 routes have been identified under Centre’s ambitious Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagarik (UDAN) scheme. As part of the scheme, airlines are expected to carry out operations connecting non-Metro cities to the Metros of the country with an aim to improve regional connectivity. The Kolhapur- headquartered group now operates a fleet of seven aircraft with two more in the pipeline.

Ghodawat said there has been a growing demand to operate flights from Pune to Indore and Jpdhpur and the group may start operations on these routes based on the allocation of slots.

Asked about the economcy of the Udan routes, he said the airline is in a comfortable position in these routes. The base of Star Air is in Bengaluru. Ghodawat said they have plans to start a similar base in Pune. “Aircraft maintenance can also be a vertical in the future,” he said.

Around 10 per cent of the group’s revenue comes from the airline business while a majority of the revenue comes from the consumer goods business.