GoAir has added its 13th
aircraft and launched a Bangalore-Goa route designed for businessmen. The
company said that this flight will leave Bangalore early in the morning and
return the same night.
Announcing
the launch of the new flight, Giorgio De Roni, chief executive officer of
GoAir, said the unlisted company posted impressive profits for the June
quarter. “Q2 (the September quarter) is the weakest, but we feel that we can
deliver a profit,” he said.
Talking on
foreign direct investment (FDI) in the airline industry, De Roni said, “I hope
that the government will approve FDI in airlines. India is in the middle of the
strongest growth rate and FDI may help the industry to grow.”
The
government has mandated that Indian airline companies who want to operate on
international routes should have operated for a minimum of five years and have
at least 20 aircraft. “The government, however, allows international operators
to fly to India even if they have just one aircraft,” he said.
While GoAir
has requested the government to relax these requirements, De Roni said, the
company will be able to acquire 20 aircraft from July 2014 and meet the
government requirement if it remains in force.
Tier II and
III cities are showing more dynamic growth than metros and GoAir is looking at
the possibility of using different aircraft for these cities, said De Roni.
Thanks to a
22 per cent capacity increase, GoAir, which flew around three million
passengers last year, would be flying about five million this year.
De Roni was critical of
Delhi Airport and said that, to the best of his knowledge, it was the only one
in the world which charged a fee on arriving passengers.
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