Vistara is ready with an international flight operation plan

Vistara is ready with an international flight operation plan

PW Bureau 

 The government has formed a panel to look into the airline's proposal for overseas travel. The government has eased rules which had previously mandated airlines to have a fleet of 20 planes, along with five years of operations, to fly abroad

New Delhi: Vistara, a Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines joint venture, has overseas operations plan ready despite delays in government regulatory approvals for flights. The government has formed a panel to look into the airline's proposal for overseas travel. The government has eased rules which had previously mandated airlines to have a fleet of 20 planes, along with five years of operations, to fly abroad. The new rules, however, stipulate that airlines need 20 aircrafts to be eligible.

"We have a plan ready which we can implement once we get the approval," chief operating officer Sanjiv Kapoor said.

Vistara meets eligibility

The airline, with a fleet of 22 planes, completed five years of domestic operations last month. Vistara will take delivery of up to 12 planes in FY20 with the help of two Airbus A321s, two Boeing 787s and eight A320 Neos, chief executive officer Leslie Thing said earlier this week on the sidelines of the CAPA Aviation Summit.

"Our ambition has always been to be an integrated domestic-international carrier which is why we chose the full service model," COO Kapoor said at the event.

"The first 787 arrives a year from now. Vistara's ambition is to make Indians fly to prominent world capitals. We want to create a global hub carrier and reclaim the glory of flying maximum number of Indians overseas," he said. Kapoor also said the airline is keen to sign up more codeshare agreements.

"Vistara has an opportunity to succeed with its business model where other full service carriers have failed. But its international plan needs to be accelerated in order to capitalise on the fast growing international premium segment. To support its business model, there needs to be a focus on realigning its domestic network for international feed and de-feed in order to make it sustainable in addition with codeshare and partnership opportunities," said Manish Raniga, a former senior Jet Airways executive and an independent sector expert.

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