Zoom Air to focus on under-served air routes

India's latest private airline Zoom Air, which launched its inaugural flight on Sunday from Delhi to West Bengal's Durgapur, plans to fill the gap of "sectors which are less catered" by other scheduled airlines, a company official said.

The airline will start daily scheduled operations from the Delhi-Kolkata-Durgapur-Delhi sector from next Wednesday and the same will be extended to Amritsar in the afternoon followed by a Delhi-Surat-Bhavnagar-Delhi evening service.

"We will fill the gap of sectors which are less catered to by other scheduled airlines. We will connect Tirupati, Vijaywada, Mumbai, Shillong, Aizawl, Pasighat and Zero (in Arunachal Pradesh), Allahabad, Gorakhpur, Indore and Bhopal, atleast once daily from Delhi and Kolkata," said airline's CEO and Director Koustav M. Dhar.

The carrier's aircrafts produced by Bombardier are versatile for short sectors flying and aptly suited for Indian Tier II and Tier III cities, he said adding that the airline is the first private carrier to join Ministry of Civil Aviation's initiative for Regional connectivity Scheme (RCS).

"We envisage a 18-20 percent year on growth on such under-served and un-served airports. It is all about connectivity and regular reliable services," Dhar said.

The airline has been accorded Air Operators Permit by Director General of Civil Aviation on February 3.

It presently has three CRJ-200LR aircrafts, under dry lease from CRJ Aircraft Leasing, Dublin, out of which two aircrafts have been imported. The airline has acquired two more CRJ-200LR aircrafts from Skyone FZE Aircraft leasing, UAE under dry lease which will join its fleet by April 2017 to complete the fleet of five aircrafts within one year - a required condition by DGCA.

Promoted by Zexus Air Services, the airline is the country's 10th schedule carrier for domestic skies presently, with others being Air India, Air India Express, Jet Airways, Jetlite, Indigo, Spicejet, GoAir, Vistara and Air Asia-India.

--IANS

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