Taneja Aerospace Lines Up Time Share For Corporates

Called Net-Air, the scheme assures the benefits of owning a private aircraft without actually doing so. Instead, corporates can buy flying hours on Net-Air's fleet of aircraft.

The scheme is expected to take off in March next year. TAAL has already got down to manufacturing three P68C six-seater aircraft for the launch of its time-share scheme.

However, the whopping price tag that comes with the Net-Air scheme might prove to be a dampener to many medium and even large-sized companies.

Corporates will have to pay an upfront service fee of Rs 60 lakh, which will entitle them to 200 hours of flying per year for five years on the aircraft. For subsequent years, a fixed operating fee for every hour of actual flying would be charged.

 

Besides, corporates will also have to bear the operating cost of Rs 3,800 per hour for actual flying.

Interestingly, the P68C six-seater aircraft costs only Rs 2 crore.

Also, it is not clear how the propeller-driven P68C aircraft can race with the faster jet aircraft run by the scheduled commercial private airlines.

But TAAL insists that Net-Air service would be most useful to corporates for reaching out to remote areas.

It justified the upfront fee of Rs 60 lakh saying the scheme enabled the corporates to predict the costs entirely. Apart from saving on acquisition costs, all expenses, including service fee and opening fee, are tax deductible.

"This in itself should be more attractive to corporates paying out hefty taxes," Salil Taneja, managing director, TAAL said.

The company said it has already got permissions to run such air charter service, all logistics including. Flight planning, aircraft formalities and other flight management details would be taken care of by TAAL.

P68C aircraft is manufactured at TAAL's Hosur plant, near Bangalore. The company said it has successfully indigenised the production of aircraft, barring the engine and tyres, etc, with as many as five aircraft produced so far.