Hindustan Times, Bobby Anthony - Mumbai   WADIA GROUP airline GoAir, which launches operations this year, plans to add new routes to Allahabad, Khajuraho, Bhubaneshwar and Madurai by March 2006 and is expecting a break-even in the next two years. “We are also looking at a third frequency to Goa which is a high density route,” GoAir Managing Director Jeh Wadia said. He said the low-cost airline also plans to start flying to Category 1 routes that connect the metros, by mid 2006. “Ensuring that passengers continue to get the lowest fares continues to be our focus. But we will introduce new routes and more frequencies next year. We also hope to break even in two year’s time,” he said.

GoAir’s talks with Airbus and Boeing are expected to conclude by the end of January 2006 and a decision on acquiring new aircraft will be taken at around that time. The airline also intends to expand its fleet to around 16 aircraft by September 2007. “We intend to have a fleet of 30 aircraft by September 2008,” he said. Claiming that the airline has a seat load factor of around 75 percent across all routes, Wadia said: “ We would like to cut down our costs further by better utilization of capacity, turn around time as well as keeping our lease costs low.” Industry sources said the airline would soon cover more routes like Bhavnagar, Aurangabad, Kolhapur, Rajkot, Jammu, Bhopal and Kozhikode in the coming months.

“The fares which GoAir offers right now are not merely promotional. We intend to keep fares as low as possible and continue to target railway passengers as well as those who typically travel by Volvo buses,” he said. The civil aviation industry is growing at a rate of 26 per cent and that low cost carriers still have enough space to grow, he said. “The market is still untapped and is still expanding. There are enough middle class railway passengers in India,” he said.

Times Of India, Byas Anand - New Delhi: With its maiden airline venture GoAir taking off in the domestic skies last month, the Wadia family is planning to cruise deeper into the aviation market with a freighter airline and an aviation engineering venture. But this time round, both these ventures will not be a solo effort. The family is planning to offload minority stakes in the two proposed aviation ventures - the freighter airline Go Cargo, and the airline engineering centre Go Engineers.

While the promoter firm GoAir is in talks with financial investors to buy stake in Go Cargo, it plans to induct an aviation engineering firm as a strategic investor in Go Engineers. ”We are looking at external equity participation in both Go Cargo and Go Engineers. While the equity partners in both the ventures are yet to be finalised, the Wadia family has decided to hold the majority stake in both these companies,” GoAir managing director Jehangir Wadia told The Times of India.

Times of India, Byas Anand - New Delhi: With its maiden airline venture GoAir taking off in the domestic skies last month, the Wadia family is planning to cruise deeper into the aviation market with a freighter airline and an aviation engineering venture. But this time around, both these ventures will not be solo efforts.

The family is planning to offload minority stakes in the proposed ventures – the freighter airline, Go Cargo, and the airline engineering centre, Go Engineers. While the promoted firm GoAir is in talks with financial investors to buy stake in Go Cargo, it plans to induct an aviation engineering firm as a strategic investor in Go engineers. “We are looking at external equity participation in both Go Cargo and Go engineers. While the equity partners in both the ventures are yet to be finalized, the Wadia family has decided to hold majority stake in both these companies,” GoAir managing director Jehangir Wadia said.

The partners for both the ventures are expected to be selected by February 2006. “With Go Engineers, our idea is to set up an engineering facility for both narrow- and wide-body planes in India. The facilites will not only provide engineering services to GoAir planes, but also to other airlines both in India and abroad. We want to make India the hub for aircraft engineering services and are planning to induct a strategic investor to help us in the job,” he said.

India, with its low cost structure, has the capability to emerge as a hub for engineering services, he added. The company has already initiated talks with both Airbus and Boeing for inducting special freighter planes for its cargo venture- a segment that is also drawing other private sector rivals like Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines. “We are looking at all options, ranging from starting with a leased fleet or going in for outright purchase of aircraft. The modalities are expected to be finalized by January-end,” he said.

It is also evaluating planes from both Airbus and Boeing to place its first purchase order for passenger jets. The airline, which plans to start services to Delhi this summer, hopes to have a fleet of 50 planes by the end of its third year of operations.

Business Standard, Corporate Bureau - Mumbai: The Wadia Group-promoted GoAir is planning to add Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Jaipur to its flight itinerary from December 12.

The airline would offer 10,000 free tickets on its new destinations on first-come-first-serve basis. Passengers availing this scheme will only have to pay taxes amounting to Rs 221and can avail of the scheme till March 26, 2006.

Earlier, the airline had offered 10,000 GoAir FreeFares for its initial four destinations - Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Coimbatore and Goa.

With the launch of this service to these four new routes, GoAir’s destination strength would increase to 8 cities, thereby ensuring passengers are connected to important business and leisure destinations within the country.

Jeh Wadia, managing director of the Wadia group, said the airline would aggressively look at route expansion in a progressive manner.

“The addition of new routes substantiates our commitment to our passengers by connecting them to important destinations in India. All four destinations have immense business and leisure potential. Our services to these cities will not only enhance our business but also increase tourist flow to these destinations,” he said.

Business Standard, P. R Sanjai - Mumbai: Your friendly neighbourhood grocery store may soon be selling air tickets, courtesy GoAir, the latest private carrier on the block. The aim: a prospective air traveller should be able to buy tickets within 50 metres of his home or workplace. The Wadia Group-promoted GoAir is planning to hawk tickets through retail stores where the group company’s Britannia biscuits are sold.

“We are exploring the options to sell GoAir tickets through 750-odd Britannia stores and over 800,000 retail stores where Britannia biscuits are sold,” GoAir Managing Director Jeh Wadia told Business Standard.

At present, GoAir tickets can be bought through travel agents, customer care centres, mobile phones, the Internet, Tata Indicom centres and other channel partners. The airline has signed agreements with the LPG stations of Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum to sell tickets.

Other no-frills airlines—Air Deccan, SpiceJet and Paramount Airways—are also planning to reach out to air travellers. For instance, Air Deccan has made arrangements to sell tickets through 2,000 outlets of Hindustan Petroleum gas stations and has tied up with Reliance Web World spread over 110 cities.

“The basic idea is to provide 24 hours’ service to passengers,” Air Deccan Managing Director GR Gopinath said. SpiceJet has set up “SpiceJet Shops” in association with select travel agents in addition to ticket counters at airports. “Plus, there are the Internet and call centre facilities,” a SpiceJet executive said.

Indian Express, Zeeshan Shaikh, Mumbai: Low-cost carrier GoAir is likely to finalise the acquisition of around 35-50 aircarft valued at $1.5-3 billion from either Boeing or Airbus in the next month even as it plans to expand its services to North and East India by operating flights to 20 new sectors including cities like Delhi and Kolkata from March onwards.

‘‘We are looking at acquiring 35-50 aircraft worth $1.5-3 billion over the next five years. We will arrive at a decision in January,’’ GoAir MD Jeh Wadia said

The airline is likely to buy some of these aircraft while the others would be taken on lease. It presently operates with two A-320 aircraft and is planning to add one more aircraft of the same make in the next month. GoAir would have seven A-320 aircraft in its fleet by July 2006.

Industry watchers say that the Wadia’s-owned airline in all probability would throw its lot behind Airbus as its crew was already being trained on these kinds of aircraft.

The airline is also planning to make a major thrust into the North Indian region and Jammu and Kashmir by planning to serve as many as 20 new sectors in the region by March 2006. ‘‘GoAir will be serving around 20 new sectors including cities like Delhi, Lucknow, J&K, Shimla, Amritsar, Allahabad, Khajuraho, Agra, Udaipur and Kolkatta amongst others by March next year,’’ Wadia said.

All the flights to these sectors would be daily and we will be deploying our A-320s on these new routes, he added. The company presently operates on four sectors including cities like Mumbai, Goa, Ahmedabad nad Coimbatore and will be starting services to cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Jaipur from December 12.

Deccan DNA, IANS- Mumbai: The low-cost private airline GoAir is offering 10,000 free tickets on its four new destinations from here to Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Jaipur beginning Wednesday.

The tickets are available on a first-come-first-serve basis till March 26 or till stocks last, a release by the airline, promoted by the Wadia Group, said.

"In the coming months, we will aggressively look at our route expansion in a progressive manner," GoAir Managing Director Jeh Wadia said.

All four destinations - Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Jaipur - have immense business and leisure potential, Wadia said. He said GoAir's distribution network has been carefully planned keeping in mind that passengers do not have to travel long distances to purchase a ticket.

GoAir, which took off on Nov 4 with scheduled services to Goa, Ahmedabad, and Coimbatore from Mumbai, operates two A320 aircraft with a single class, 180-seat configuration, and plans to expand its fleet to 36 aircraft in three years.

The Hindu Business Line, Our Bureau - Mumbai: GoAir, the low-cost carrier promoted by the Wadia family, has extended the GoAir FreeFares scheme to the four new destinations - Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and Jaipur - it will fly effective December 12.

Under the FreeFares scheme, the airline has offered passengers 10,000 free tickets on these sectors on a first-come-first-serve basis. Tickets bookings will commence on December 7 and will last till stocks are available. Passengers availing of the scheme would get a zero fare and will only have to pay taxes amounting to Rs 221.

DNA, Praveena Sharma - Mumbai: After the smooth take-off of its passenger airline in October, Bombay Dyeing-promoted low cost carrier Go Air is preparing to launch its cargo airline and engineering services late next year.

“We are in the process of finalising our plans to start a freighter airline and set up an engineering facility for narrow and wide body aircraft. We will freeze our plans for these two services by end of December,” Go Air managing director Jeh Wadia told DNA.

“We have identified both these areas as potential for financial investments. They offer the adequate and equal growth as commercial aviation business, which is growing at around 20%,” says Wadia.

Besides Go, the other Indian airline that has announced plans of launching a freighter is the full service airline Jet Airways. Analysts say airline companies are rushing into cargo airline business because of the exponential growth in the exports and imports of the country. This has thrown up immense opportunities in this sector.

“Going by India’s intra and inter country flow of goods and services, it makes sound business sense for airlines to venture into this sector. Also, it is fairly simple to get into cargo business in the domestic sector, where they have only the Blue Darts of the world to compete with,” says N M Rothschild & Sons (India) Pvt Ltd assistant director Amitabh Malhotra.

Wadia says the airline was already in talks with Airbus and Boeing for acquisition of aircraft for both cargo and passenger business. Meanwhile, it has added one more A320s in the second month its operation.

“We want expand our fleet strength to eight aircraft by next October. Our plan includes acquisition of 36 aircraft in the next three year,” says Wadia.

Go, which started its services to three destinations (Goa, Coimbatore and Ahmedabad), is adding four more destinations (Jaipur, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore) this month.

Hindustan Times, Sabarinath M - Mumbai: The Wadia's are expanding the horizon of their aviation business by floating a freighter airline and setting up aircraft engineering facility under the Go brand name.

The group, which runs the low-cost-airline GoAir, is finalizing a plan to launch Go Cargo and Go Engineering will be two different entities managed by independent teams.

The move is part of the overall strategy to create an independent identity to the Go brand within the Wadia group structure. Speaking to Hindustan Times, GoAir managing director, Jeh Wadia said: “We are planning to venture into cargo and engineering businesses shortly. This is a logical way of expanding the scope of our aviation business.”

The group, which has placed orders for additional aircraft to expand its airline business, is now looking at acquiring more aircraft to start the cargo business.

Go Engineering is evaluating options to set up a unit for the maintenance of narrowbody and widebody aircraft. “Indian engineers are extremely talented than their counterparts in places like Europe. Hence, India is the best place to start the aircraft engineering business.” GoEngineering will also look at starting a training centre for the aspiring airline executives.

GoAir, which has moved into a new office in Andheri, has beefed up its team by recruiting three expats in the top management cadre. These expats have been roped in from European low-cost airline Fly Niki which has a strategic alliance with Air Berlin. GoAir has roped in Cor Blokziji for the position of chief operating officer.

The airline is now in the process of recruiting executives for expanding its business. GoAir is launching flight services in Coimbatore-Chennai-Coimbatore, Chennai-Hyderabad-Chennai and Mumbai-Jaipur-Mumbai routes. New routes have been added after the arrival of the second Airbus aircraft.

The airline, which is already flying to Goa and Ahmedabad from Mumabi, is offering 10,000 free tickets to passengers on a first come serve basis.