Aviation

UK NRI to connect India with new airline

ETW STAFF - Mumbai

UK-based NRI Dave Bance is planning to launch a point-to-point scheduled airline, connecting Heathrow and India by the end of 2006. The proposed airline to be called BanceAir will have a fleet of four leased Boeing 777s and will operate three daily flights to three non-metro destinations in India in a bid to cater to the increasing visiting friends and relatives (VFR) market in the UK and India.

According to Bance, who was in New Delhi recently, BanceAir has obtained a scheduled airline license from the British civil aviation authority four months ago. It has also secured permission to fly into two destinations in India from the ministry of civil aviation, India. Permission to fly to the third destination is, however, pending.

Industry analysts, however, are sceptical about the business proposal and wonder how much of an impact the proposed airline will make on the sector, which has got extremely crowded since the new air services agreement was signed last year. At present, there are almost two dozen airlines operating on the route like Lufthansa, KLM, Air India, Royal Jordanian, Air France, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic, SriLankan Airlines, British Midland besides Jet and Air Sahara.

"We are projecting a 70 per cent load factor on our flights and we will have only two class configurations of business and economy", says Bance explaining his business model. "A lot of British Asians often waste a lot of time reaching directly to their home-towns in India. I plan to make their journey a bit less tedious by connecting direct flights to these select destinations," Bance said, refusing to divulge the cities he's going to fly into. Currently, bulk of the flights originating from the UK, are connecting business hub Mumbai, and other metros like New Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai and Bangalore. However, cash-rich smaller cities such as Ahmedabad and Amritsar have also come on the route lately. As per the data available with Visitbritian.com about 37 per cent of visitors from India to UK come for the purpose of visiting VFR, 32 per cent come for business and 21 per cent for a holiday. The proportion of holiday visitors has dropped in the past 6 years whereas the VFR market share increased from 21 per cent in 1999. Initial investment in the airline (excluding the cost of leased aircraft) has been $40 million. The 70 million pound Bance group has business interests in manufacturing, real estate and hotel investment, IT & telecommunications and the film and music industry business.