Air Pegasus to connect Bengaluru with Mangaluru, Chennai

Low-cost carrier Air Pegasus on Wednesday said it would connect Bengaluru with Mangaluru and Chennai from August 21.

"Besides daily flights to Mangaluru and Chennai, we will offer daily service to Madurai (Tamil Nadu) instead of thrice a week and fly twice a day to Hubbali (northern Karnataka) from August 21," Air Pegasus managing director Shyson Thomas told IANS here.

Karnataka's main port city, Mangaluru on the west coast is a leading industrial and food processing centre in the southern region.

Flights to Mangaluru will leave Bengaluru at 10.40 a.m. and land in Mangaluru at 11.50 a.m. Return flight will depart at 12.15 p.m. to land here at 1.25 p.m.

"We are expanding operations as part of our commitment to provide a ir connectivity to more cities and towns across the southern region in view of overwhelming response from passengers on our present routes," Thomas said.

The airline claimed to have an average occupancy (plane load factor) of 80 percent on its flights to Hubbali and Madurai from Bengaluru and vice-versa.

The city-based budget carrier commenced operations in April with daily flights to Hubbali and Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, followed by thrice a week service to Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh from June 7 and Madurai from June 26.

Pegasus operates the 66-seat twin engine turboprop ATR-72 on all its routes .

The airline's company, Decor Aviation, has been providing ground handling services to Indian and overseas airlines from 11 airports across the country over the years.

The company, which invested Rs.100 crore to launch the airline, with 3:1 equity-debt ratio, plans to add three more ATR aircraft to the two it has on dry lease by December.

It has a permit to launch service to and from 22 airports across south India, connecting tier-two and tier-three cities with cities and metros like Chennai and Hyderabad.

Though the southern region has 30 functional airports, all of them are not connected yet, as full-fledged, budget carriers and low-cost airlines have been operating between metros and cities, leaving tier-two and tier-three cities or towns unconnected.

Air Pegasus is the country's ninth carrier and third new airline after Air Asia and Vistara.