MUMBAI: Asia’s largest budget carrier AirAsia outlined plans yesterday to aggressively grow its Indian joint venture, including by adding 10 planes a year and focusing on flying new routes.
AirAsia Chief Executive Tony Fernandes said more than 50 staff, including pilots and engineers, have been recruited for the new no-frills airline, which plans to start operations in India later this year.
Fernandes said the new airline plans to add 10 Airbus A320s a year to its fleet, which will focus on routes in southern India, rather than Mumbai and New Delhi, before expanding elsewhere in the country.
“India’s aviation has not grown. There are lots of routes which have not been done and lots of airports have been under-utilised,” Fernandes told reporters in Mumbai. “We will give the lowest possible fares,” he added.
Malaysia-based AirAsia won approval from India’s foreign investment panel in March to set up the airline in a joint venture with the giant Tata group and entrepreneur Arun Bhatia’s Telstra Tradeplace.
The new venture will be the first by a foreign airline since India relaxed foreign investment rules in September allowing overseas carriers to take up to a 49 percent stake in domestic firms.
AirAsia will own 49 percent, the Tata group 30 percent and Telstra the balance of 21 percent.
Fernandes said making the new airline a success would be “challenging” but he was determined to persevere.
Truckers begin strike in Brazil
SAO PAULO: Brazil’s trucking union yesterday started a 72-hour strike that has slowed traffic in the Sao Paulo state region and might delay the movement of record soy, corn and sugar crops to ports, although it is unlikely to stop exports entirely.
An official with the MUBC trucking union said that the strike had started at 6am local time (0900 GMT), but had no information about its magnitude or whether it had nationwide adherence.
Television images early yesterday showed hundreds of trucks lining two highways leading to Sao Paulo, the country’s biggest city. MUBC’s demands include a subsidy for diesel fuel, exemption on highway toll payments for drivers and the creation of a new federal government department of cargo transportation.
Agencies
