Seasonality is not important to us: Mittu Chandilya

Q&A with CEO, AirAsia India

After a detailed scrutiny of the preparedness of AirAsia India for about seven-and-a-half months, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation on Wednesday granted the air operator’s permit (AOP) to AirAsia India. The airline’s CEO Mittu Chandilya tells Sharmistha Mukherjee about its action plan to launch commercial operations. Edited excerpts :

Now that you have the AOP at hand, how long would it to launch commercial operations?
We have not decided on the specific date of launch as the hearing before the Delhi High Court is due. We would now sit down and work out flight schedules and airport slots. Seasonality is not important to me. They say the third quarter is good but I would have been happy to start operations in the second quarter as well. There are a lot of variables in this business. However for us, our network is always a strength.

With Chennai as your hub, what are the places you are looking at flying to?

Chennai will be our hub and we would fly to places like Trichy where we did our proving flights. There would be more destinations we would expand to. I strongly believe in the potential in tier-II cities. Our route network would have a balance between these places and metros.

AirAsia has said it will revolutionise India’s air travel market by offering disruptive prices. What would be the benchmark for the fares you offer?
We would be disruptive in pricing. My competitor is not other airlines operating in this country. My benchmark is the first-class fare offered by the railways.

Which would be 25-30% cheaper than the prevalent air fares?
Yes, the kicker for me is low fares. Quality of service, safety standards, reliability and on-time performance are very important hygiene factors.

How many employees do you have on-board and how many more would you require to start operations?
We have hired 277 people, enough for starting operations with a fleet of three aircraft. We would have a total of 10 aircraft by the end of the first year of operations. So we will hire accordingly.