Now calling at all towns

Take the case of low-cost carrier Air Deccan. From operating 90 flights a day to 32 domestic destinations till March 2005, the airline had strengthened its network in just a year by taking the number to 250 flights a day to 52 destinations. The airline is currently operating 300 flights a day to 59 destinations. Air Deccan has recently added two new destinations8212; Kandla and Bellary 8212; on its own network as well as on the country8217;s civil aviation map. It now plans to connect Pathankot shortly.

Jet Airways too increased its daily domestic flights from 275 last year to 310 this year. Other private airlines have followed suit. Kingfisher Airlines, Air Sahara and Spicejet have added about 14 destinations. In fact, according to latest figures released by the Civil Aviation ministry there has been a growth of 32.2 per cent in the total domestic aircraft movement in the first quarter of the current fiscal. Between April and June this year, a whopping 1,91,150 aircrafts movements were recorded in the domestic sector.

IT8217;S been no secret that breaking the 8216;8216;big cities-centric8217;8217; air-traffic patterns to ensure regional connectivity has been high on civil aviation minister Praful Patel8217;s agenda. But even as his ministry mulls sops like free landing, parking and route navigation to encourage airlines to operate to smaller cities and towns, the fact that many private airlines have already sniffed a great business opportunity here has come as a welcome surprise to the government.

There8217;s been good news for other destinations as well that had air connections but very few flights in the past. Now that8217;s being set right see Back in the Loop. Places like Jammu, Srinagar, Chandigarh, Varanasi, Bhopal, Gwalior, Rajkot, Aurangabad, Belgaum, Kolhapur, Calicut, Bhavnagar, Jamnagar, Jabalpur, Mangalore, Tirupati, Tiruchirapalli, Madurai and Port Blair too now have more flights than ever before.

THE northeast has also finally got connected. Agartala, Aizawl, Imphal, Dibrugarh and Baghdogra now have daily flights from Kolkata. Jet Airways has recently started flights to Jorhat, the first private carrier to do so. In September, Indian Airlines increased its frequency to Silchar, Imphal and Agartala to seven days a week and started 14 flights a week between Kolkata-Guwahati. The airline also resumed the Guwahati-Agartala airlink with a daily flight.

Meanwhile, in response to an increased demand for seats on some routes, many airlines have upgraded their aircrafts. Jet Airways, for instance, has upgraded from ATR to Boeing 737 on routes touching bases at Indore, Bhopal, Chandigarh, Kochi and Mangalore. Places like Leh, Vadodara and Amritsar too have additional frequencies of Jet Airways flights. Coimbatore has been upgraded from ATRs to Airbus aircraft operated by Air Deccan. From June 2006, Indian Airlines has started daily Airbus flight between Delhi-Bhopal-Indore-Mumbai offering 1,000 seats per week in each direction.

EXPERTS have been asking for an expansion of the country8217;s aviation network for long. 8216;8216;Aviation in India has always been Delhi-Mumbai centric. But in order to grow as an industry, aviation will have to go tier II and tier III cities. You cannot just operate in only metros any longer. Regional connectivity is critical in the long run and it is good to see that airlines like Air Deccan are connecting a lot of smaller destinations,8217;8217; says Kapil Kaul, CEO Indian subcontinent, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation CAPA.

Aviation analysts also feel that with most of the metro routes already saturated, flying to smaller places also makes tremendous business sense.

8216;8216;Already there are talks of several new airlines contemplating region-specific operations in the north, south and the northeast. If the government provides some sops on fuel taxation, parking and landing charges and navigation charges, more airlines would be willing to go to regional centres,8221; Kaul adds.

The government, meanwhile, is apparently working out a detailed policy to promote airlines interested in operating smaller aircraft, 80-seater and fewer, flying from a single metro within a region. This is being done to restart operations at airstrips that are currently not operational.

Back in the loop

8226; Gorakhpur now has thrice-a-week flights from Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Indore and Allahabad

8226; Tuticorin gets connected to Chennai with a daily flight

8226; Rajahmundry has daily flights connecting it to Chennai, Hyderabad and Vijaywada

8226; Hubli is connected with daily flights to Bangalore and Mumbai

8226; Bhubaneswar is now connected to 20 cities daily with 21 Air Sahara flights

8226; Deccan has two flights daily to Bhubaneswar from Kolkata and six flights a week from Delhi

8226; Dehradun is also connected to Delhi with two flights a day

8226; Dibrugarh now has daily flights from Kolkata and Guwahati

8226; Daily flights connect Raipur to Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Ranchi

8226; Indore has daily flights from Delhi and Gwalior. It is also connected to Bangalore, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Ranchi, Lucknow and Chennai