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| GoAir
Has Bought A320 Planes: Airbus |
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| July
18, 2006 |
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Mumbai
Mirror, Farnborough: Airbus
said on Monday that Indian Low cost airline
GoAir was buying 10 of its A320 planes, worth
$670 million at list prices. GoAir also
has an option to buy 10 more of its A320 planes,
Airbus said at the Farnborough International
Airshow. The planes are to be powered
by CFM International engines. |
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| GoAir
Firms Up New Purchases |
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| July
18, 2006 |
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The
Financial Express, Bureau, Mumbai: GoAir
is likely to sign a purchase agreement with
Airbus at the Farnborough International Airshow
for 10 Airbus A320 aircraft and ten more as
optional. The delivery of the aircraft is expected
to start by 2007. Currently, GoAir has two leased
A320s with a further five leased A320s scheduled
to enter the fleet during 2006. These aircraft
will enable the carrier to develop new routes.
GoAir currently operates a fleet of Airbus A320s
with 24 flights covering 13 cities across India. |
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| GoAir
To Buy 10 Airbus A320 |
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| July
18, 2006 |
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The
Indian Express, Bureau, Mumbai:
Low-cost acrrier GoAir has signed a purchase
agreement for 10 Airbus A320 family aircraft
with an option for a further ten at Farn-borough
air show on Monday. The aircraft will be powered
by CFM International engines |
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| GoAir
Buys 10 A320 Planes From Airbus |
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| July
18, 2006 |
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Hindustan
Times, Reuters, Mumbai: European
planemaker Airbus said on Monday that Indian
low-cost airline GoAir was buying 10 of its
A320 planes, worth $670 million at list prices.
GoAir, owned by the Wadia Group, also has an
option to buy 10 more A320 planes, Airbus said
at the Farnborough International Airshow. The
deal was the only firm order for Airbus planes
announced on the first day of the show where
the planemaker has been explaining how it will
address delays in its A380 superjumbo. |
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GoAir said it expects to take deliveries of
the aircraft next year to increase flights on
existing routes within India, which has experienced
a boom in air travel in recent years. “At
the moment, we are consolidating the routes
that we fly on and we are looking at only those
routes,” GoAir Managing Director Jeh Wadia
said. GoAir, which already has a fleet of leased
A320s, was launched in November last year. Wadia
said that GoAir was not interested in buying
any assets from Air Sahara. A deal by private
airline Jet Airways to buy Air Sahara for $500
million col lapsed last month. |
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| GoAir,
Airbus Deal |
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| July
18, 2006 |
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| Business
Standard, Bureau, Mumbai: GoAir
has signed an agreement with Airbus for acquiring
10 Airbus A320s, with an option to acquire 10
more Airbus aircraft. |
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| GoAir
Buys Ten Airbus A320 Planes |
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| Jul
17, 2006 |
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Reuters,
Michael Smith, Farnborough, England: European
plane maker Airbus said on Monday that Indian
low-cost airline GoAir was buying 10 of its
A320 planes, worth $670 million at list prices.
|
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GoAir, owned by India's
Wadia Group, also has an option to buy 10
more A320 planes, Airbus said at the Farnborough
International Airshow.
|
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The
deal was the only firm order for Airbus planes
announced on the first day of the show where
the planemaker has been explaining how it will
address delays in its A380 superjumbo. |
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GoAir
said it expects to take deliveries of the aircraft
next year to increase flights on existing routes
within India, which has experienced a boom in
air travel in recent years. |
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"At
the moment we are consolidating the routes that
we fly on and we are looking at only those routes,"
GoAir Managing Director Jeh Wadia told Reuters
on the sidelines of the air show. |
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| GoAir has no immediate
plans to fly outside of India, he said. |
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| GoAir, which already
has a fleet of leased A320s, was launched in November
last year. |
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Wadia
told Reuters that GoAir was not interested in
buying any assets from Indian carrier Air Sahara.
A deal by private airline Jet Airways to buy
Air Sahara for $500 million collapsed last month. |
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| Airbus said the
GoAir planes are to be powered by CFM International
engines, a joint venture between General Electric
and France's Snecma. |
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| (Additional
reporting by Rina Chandran in Mumbai and Tim Hepher
in Farnborough) |
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| Airline
Tickets Just One Phone Call Away Now |
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| July
15, 2006 |
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Business
Standard, P R Sanjai, Mumbai: Increased
capacity in the avi-ation space has forced domestic
airlines to think out of box to reach passengers
who are not online. In addition to offering
them discounted fares, airlines are now giving
tickets at door steps of passengers. Airlines
are strengthening ticket distribution systems
through tying with courier firms for door delivery
and entering into strate-gic arrangement with
ATM operators. |
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|
The Wadia Group promoted low-cost carrier GoAir
has tied up with Mumbai-based speciality courier
company ExpressIT for home delivery of tickets.
By calling GoAir call centre, the ticket booked
will be delivered to their doorstep within 24
hours at a nominal charge. This charge, in addition
to the cost of the ticket at the time of booking,
can be paid either by cash or credit card. Jeh
Wadia, Managing Director, GoAir said: "
The focus is on convenience. |
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| Going,
Going, Go: Wadia Scion On Flight |
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| July
15, 2006 |
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Hindustan
Times, Sabarinath M, Mumbai: A
train journey that Jeh Wadia took 2003 changed
not only his life but the lives of middle class
Indian travellers. “I went to Chitrakoot
in Madhya Pradesh by train,” recalls the
managing director of the airline Go Air. “And
I had to pay almost Rs 2,000 for 25 hours of
painful travel. That’s the day I decided
to start a low-cost airline.” To think
was to do for the 32year-old son of industrialist
Nusli Wadia, and now, two years later Go Air
offers travellers flights from Mumbai to Goa,
Coimbatore and Cochin, with more destinations
planned in the next few months, at affordable
prices. |
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But
Go Air is not unique. There are several other
low-cost airlines in Indian skies. Will this
fledgling really take off ? “We will break
even soon,” says Jeh. “There is
a huge opportunity waiting to be explored, and
the number of people travelling by low-cost
airline is growing by leaps and bounds.”
In fact, so confident is Jeh about the viability
of Go Air that he’s planning to rope in
private equity funds to invest in the airline.
Go Air needs this additional investment since
it plans to buy 20 A320 jets for $1.2 billion.
This is mainly to expand operations into North
India. |
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But
the airline is not only business for Jeh. It’s
also love. He’s been passionate about
planes since he was a child — in fact,
Nusli Wadia once owned an air taxi service called
Megapod Airlines — and Jeh spent a lot
of time aboard his family-owned private jet,
travelling with his father on business. “I
always liked flying,” says Jeh. But it
took him a long time to actually get into the
business of aviation. After graduating from
Warwick University, UK, Jeh had joined the group
flagship company, Bombay Dyeing. |
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He
then moved on to explore the information and
technology business. He even forged a joint
venture with Tata Nova during the dot com boom.
Simultaneously, he was made the deputy managing
director of Bombay Burmah, a company within
the Bombay Dyeing group. “Jeh still maintains
a close rapport with his classmates. He is very
informal,” says a Mumbaibased investment
banker and classmate of Jeh Wadia. Jeh has also
been inducted on to the board of group joint
venture company and biscuit major Britannia.
|
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But
it is his association with Nanaji Deshmukh that
makes Jeh different from other business heads.
When he’s not at the Go Air office or
at various airports around the country checking
out customer behaviour first hand, Jeh drives
to Chitrakoot where Deshmukh runs several projects
for farmers. “I have been greatly influenced
by what Nanaji Deshmukh does. He taught me the
importance of doing something to make poor people
self reliant,” says Jeh. And that led
to Krishi Vidya Kendra, a farming research and
development centre in Chitrakoot, Madhya Pradesh.
|
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Jeh has also helped set up seed banks and financed
the development of organic fertilisers by using
only local resources, with the aim to make at
least 60,000 villages in Chitrakoot self-reliant
over the next few years. |
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| GoAir
To Ink Deal For 20 Aircraft Next Week |
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| July
12, 2006 |
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The
Times Of India, Byas Anand, Mumbai: The
Indian tricolour is flying high in the aircraft
shopping market. Wadia family-promoted GoAir
is set to ink an agreement with European aircraft
maker Airbus next week to buy 20 A320 jets for
a list price of around $1.2 billion. The agreement
would be inked at the Farnborough Air Show next
week, sources told TOI. The airline, which is
operating with a fleet of leased A320 planes,
intends to use the mint-fresh planes to spread
its wings in the domestic skies. |
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Though
GoAir had initially planned to place firm orders
for 10 planes and keep the option to buy another
10 at a later date, sources pointed out that
negotiations are underway to convert even the
options into firm orders. "GoAir has penned
an aggressive expansion plan and intends to
induct these aircraft to expand into north India
and other key metro-to-metro routes," a
source said. All the aircraft would be delivered
in a single-class economy layout with 180 seats.
GoAir promoter Jehangir Wadia was not immediately
available for comments. The family had recently
inducted BPL Mobile's Rajeev Chandrashekhar
to its board. |
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Sources
said that Chandrashekhar has picked up around
15% stake in the airline venture. Besides, GoAir
is in negotiations with a host of other individuals
and equity funds to invest in the airline. In
the recent past Indian carriers have placed
huge aircraft orders at the international air
shows. Led by Spicejet, IndiGo, Kingfisher Airlines
and Air Deccan, Indian Airlines had together
placed orders for nearly 200 planes at these
events, making the country one of the biggest
customers in recent years. |
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| GoAir
Tickets Now At Your Doorstep |
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| July
8, 2006 |
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| The
Indian Express, Bureau, Mumbai:
Starting Saturday, if you
book at least three days in advance and are
flying the Wadia group-promoted GoAir, you could
get your tickets delivered to your doorstep.
At a price, of course. But the carrier believes
that at Rs 225 per PNR booking, its a stea deal.
"Even if you have 10 tickets booked on
the same PNR number, the amount will not escalate
as its not a per head cost one pays," explains
Raj Halve, Chief Commercial Officer, GoAir.
With the exception of Sri-nagar, the service
will be offered across GoAir's route network,
including Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Ahmedabad,
Bangalore, Pune, Goa. |
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| Potholes
force 2-hr closure of runway |
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| July
6, 2006 |
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The
Asian Age, Correspondent, Mumbai: Domestic
air traffic in the city was disrupted as the
airport had to be shut for two hours to carry
out maintenance work to fill up the potholes
that had been created on account of the rains.
The main runway at Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport
was found to have some parts that had peeled
off on account of heavy rains. Airport authorities
informed the airlines operating from the runway
that they would be carrying out repairs as a
result of which the secondary runway would have
to be used by them. “After rains continued
in the city for the fifth day, maintenance work
was carried out between 2 and 4 pm,” an
airport official said. |
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Despite having an alternate runway
open, flights that were scheduled during the
two hours were diverted to other airports
like Ahmedabad, Pune and Goa. Airport officials
that it was likely that due to the downpour,
visibility had been affected at the airport
due to which airlines had chosen to use other
airports.
|
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GoAir issued a press statement
stating that it has had some delays. “However,
we have not diverted or cancelled any of our
flights. We have also made provisions to inform
our passengers well in advance.
|
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| GoAir
bets big on tourist traffic |
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| July
6, 2006 |
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The
Economic Times, Boby Kurian, Mumbai: The
Wadias-promoted GoAir intends to fly high on
tourism. The low-cost airline has forged a strategic
pact with Kerala State Tourism Development Corporation
(KTDC) for a big share of the state’s
tourist traffic. Under the arrangement, GoAir
will be the preferred airline for KTDC. It will
work with the Kerala government undertaking
and a logistics company, Intersight, for a GoKerala
initiative to encourage domestic tourism to
the state. |
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“This
is part of our plan to unleash at least one
big marketing initiative every month,”
GoAir managing director Jeh Wadia told ET. Besides
continuous joint promotions, the airline will
have special counters in all KTDC hotels. Mr
Wadia said GoAir could end FY07 with a market
share of 6%. “We may be there at our current
momentum, and if the sector remains to grow
at present level,” he added. “We
are currently at 4% share and has a load factor
of nearly 80%,” he said. |
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GoAir
began the ongoing financial year with 2% market
share, against SpiceJet’s 6% and Kingfisher’s
7%. “We have started operations on the
Delhi-Mumbai routes twice daily, and that has
made a difference,” Mr Wadia said. Meanwhile,
GoAir has received several investment proposals
as it looks to raise funds for expansion. “We
have asked Morgan Stanley to advise on these
proposals. The airline would look at raising
funds through both debt or equity,” he
added. |
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| GoAir
offers 10% discount |
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| July
4, 2006 |
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The
Hindu Business Line, PTI, Mumbai: GoAir
today announced a 10 per cent discount scheme
for Central and State Government employees,
current and ex-armed force officers, students
and senior citizens. "This is an investment
in the people who have built our country and
who will continue to build the future. We believe
in giving our passengers great value for money,"
the GoAir Director, Mr Jeh Wadia, said in a
release. This is not a promotional gimmick and
time-bound but a permanent offer, he added |
