Pegasus to fly to Andhra's Kadapa from Bengaluru

Air Pegasus will fly daily to Kadapa in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh from Bengaluru from June 7, the new low-cost private carrier said on Sunday.

"We are providing air connectivity to Kadapa, one of the fast-growing tier-two cities in view of its strategic location and for being a major trading centre in the Rayalaseema region," Air Pegasus managing director Shyson Thomas said in a statement here.

The city-based airline, which operates the 66-seater twin-engine turboprop aircraft ATR-72 on its feeder service, is pricing the fare at Rs.1,234 initially.

The flight will take off from Bengaluru at 10.40 a.m. and land on Kadapa's newly-built airport at 11.30 a.m. It will leave from there at 11.50 a.m. to reach here at 12.35 p.m.

Launching its maiden service to Hubballi in north Karnataka from Bengaluru on May 12 and to Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala the following day, the budget airline has claimed to have about 80 percent load factor.

"Customer response to our two destinations has been overwhelming, which makes us confident to add more destinations to our route map with dynamic pricing," Thomas said.

"We aim to be a regional airline brand with more connectivity in regions which are underserved and to connect non-connected sectors," Thomas said.

Parent company, the city-based Decor Aviation provides ground handling services to Indian and overseas airlines from 11 airports across the country.

Based at the Kempegowda International Airport here, the airline will connect Kochi, Chennai, Belgaum, Rajahmundry, Pondicherry and Madurai in the coming months.

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

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

The airline, named after the winged stallion from Greek mythology, has permit to launch service to and from any of the 22 airports across south India, connecting tier-two and tier-three cities with cities and metros like Chennai and Hyderabad.

Air Pegasus is the ninth carrier in the country and third new airline to launch service after Air Asia and Vistara during the last 14 months.