Air Asia Likely To Fly The Indian Skies In Jan 2014

After the Tata’s and Singapore Airlines collaboration for India, it seemed like Air Asia will hit a speed bump and might be grounded for long. Then there was the Subramaniam Swamy’s petition in the Delhi high court to put a stay on the launch of the airline, which did not go too well in court. The Delhi High court has refused to put a stay on the launch and has agreed to hear the matter again on Dec 11.

At the moment the launch of the Airlines on the India turf is imminent. The Malaysian budget airline will get a regular air operators permit in Jan and can start the first of its flight then. Arun Misra, Director General and Civil Aviation confirmed that the airlines will get its permit in the next two months, which will enable them to operate India wide flights.

Air Asia has plans to first operate in just South India. However, they will not add too many flights on the Indian sector and will test the waters first. Tier 2 and 3 towns seem to be favoured by the airlines, which will operate with an initial staff of modest 300 people. If the company does well and increases its operations in India, we just might see a budget airline price war in some sectors. However, that is still a far-off dream.