Alliance Air to add five new ATR planes by fiscal-end

Disinvestment-bound Air India's regional arm, Alliance Air, plans to induct five ATR planes in its fleet in as many months and will soon roll out flights to three new destinations as part of the government's UDAN scheme, a top official said.
As of now, the Delhi-based airline flies to 46 destinations with a fleet of 15 ATR 72-600s.
"We are in the process of inducting new ATR 72-600 aircraft by March next year, which will take our fleet size to 20 planes at the end of the fiscal," Alliance Air Chief Executive Officer C S Subbiah said at a function held by JRD Tata Memorial Trust here today.

Subbiah said that the airline is "competing" with high density rail traffic and that it has enhanced frequency on many routes with daily flights from weekly flights in the last two years.
Alliance Air, at present, operates 89 departures per day connecting 62 city-pairs.
"Along with the fleet, we are expanding our route network as well. We will shortly be launching a flight to Agra from Delhi, which will be our 47th destinations, as part of the government's regional connectivity scheme UDAN," he said.

Alliance Air and four other operators --SpiceJet, Air Deccan, Air Odisha and TruJet -- were mandated to launch flights 70 airports connecting 128 routes in the first round of bidding for UDAN.

Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) scheme seeks to provide air connectivity to unserved airports as well as enhancing flight services to the underserved ones at affordable fares.
Alliance Air has bagged 15 routes as part of this, Subbiah said adding, the airlne has already launched flights to 12 routes and operations on the remaining three including Agra will commence soon.