Airwaves

GoAir to up frequencies from December

Bhisham Mansukhani - Mumbai

Jeh Wadia

Latest low cost airline GoAir is poised to increase its route network in December when its second A320 aircraft it recently inducted, takes off. While there is no official confirmation regarding the names of cities, these will most likely be more Western region cities as well as a Southern debut for the airline. The airline currently flies a single A320 aircraft (180 seats) from Mumbai to Ahmedabad, Goa and Coimbatore, twice a day, operating ten flights in all.

Jeh Wadia,MD,GoAir, had previously stated that he was considering Kozhikode, Trivandrum, Madurai and Chennai to increase his airline's network. Wadia plans to increase his aircraft fleet, which will go to two in December, to a total of 36 aircraft in three years. The airline has adopted an approach of consolidating on routes with lesser traffic before taking on trunk routes.

With regard to distribution, while travel agents are part of the loop, GoAir has created it own model of distribution which entails creating co-branded points of sales like cyber cafers and call centres. According to Wadia, the requierement of a credit card to buy seats has so far inhibited a large market of passengers who either donot hold one or are hesitant to use it on the Internet. Multiple points of sale beyond the Internet and payment modes apart from credit card, he believes, will open up a larger market.