Singapore Airlines, Tata Sons JV all set to fly by Sept 1

Tata SIA Airlines Ltd, the joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, which plans to start its operations by September 1, will fly on nine routes during the first year of its operations that will be subsequently increased to 16 and 20 during the second and third year, before being consolidated to 19 routes during the fourth year, said a document submitted by the upcoming airline to the DGCA.

The airline, whose flights will originate from New Delhi, plans fly to destinations like Mumbai, Goa, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Srinagar, Jammu, Patna, Chandigarh, during the first year of its operations, it said in an application filing for Air Operations Permit (AOP) to the DGCA.

“The approximate date of commencement is September 1, 2014,” it said.

The proposed full-service airline plans to further add destinations like Chennai, Lucknow, Pune, Varanasi, Kolkata, Guwahati, during the second year and Amritsar, Indore, and Cochin during the third and fourth year respectively.

“All flights, including linked flights, will originate in Delhi and all aircraft will return to Delhi to nightstop,” it added.

The airline will use Airbus A320-200 (Ceo) aircraft and Airbus A320-200 (Neo) to cater to its operations. All these aircraft will be dry leased from Wilmington Trust SP Services in Dublin (Ireland). The duration of the lease agreement will be six years for A320-200 (Ceo) aircraft and 12 years for A 320-200 (Neo).

The airline also elaborated on its planned capacity deployment for category one, two and three cities, which will range between 11.5 million and 61.9 million Available Seat Kilometers (ASKM) during the first four years of its operations.

“TATA SIA proposes to engage initially domestic and eventually international full service scheduled passenger airline services in the civil aviation sector in India to undertake ancillary activities related to airline services including but not limited to air transport carriers (of freight), cargo handling incidental to air transport, renting and leasing (except financial leasing) of aircraft and other services incidental to air transport services,” the airline said in its filing.

It said that the the main administrative, maintenance and operational facilities of the airline will be located in Delhi’s National Capital Region (NCR0.

The administrative facilities meanwhile will be in Gurgaon while the maintenance and operational facilities will be housed in Terminal 3 of Indira Gandhi International Airport.

Tata SIA has in April sought permission from DGCA to start its operations. Thee regulator had on Wednesday sought comments