Chartered Flights

Charter aircraft business soars in B-towns

MUMBAI: For several decades, a majority of the country's charter aircraft were owned and parked in Delhi, and then some in Mumbai. Now suddenly, there are wings all over the country: in the last three years, the airfields of Imphal, Chandigarh, Vadodara , Chennai, Lucknow , Davangere, Puducherry, Patiala, Sagar and others have become home to birds like the Cessna Caravan, King Air C 90, Beechcraft, Learjet and Bombardier Global Express . 

The decentralization of the charter aircraft fleet has meant different things to different people. For the residents of Imphal, for instance, it's been a definite answer to a very tricky question: How long does it take to travel from Imphal to Aizawl? "It used to take ten hours, if the weather gods were indulgent, that is. 

Otherwise it could take 12, 15, even 20 hours,'' says Roshni Kumar, talking about rains, landslides and other factors typical of road travel in the North-East. Then in 2008, North East Shuttles Ltd, a private charter company, began operations, and last year decided to fly its six-seater Cessna Caravan between these two towns. The Mizoram government subsidized the flight, and now for Rs 2,875 one can board the aircraft from Aizawl at 11 am daily and be in Imphal a flat 40 minutes later, come rain or sunshine. 

"IA does operate flights here. But many airports like Aizawl's Lengpui do not have landing aids, and so when the visibility drops, the big planes cannot fly there. Our Cessna Caravan turns into a saviour,'' says Kumar. So, on any given day, one can find a variety of travellers on this charter flight, from doctors and medical representatives to students and people visiting relatives. 

Like the Caravan parked in Imphal, there are several planes parked across the country. Currently, there are 118 companies in India with a non-scheduled operator's permit (NSOP), a licence issued by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation to operate charter flights. 

Together, these companies own a fleet of 295 aircraft (excluding offshore operators like Pawan Hans , Global Vectra and United Helicharters), of which only 117 are based in Delhi and 48 in Mumbai. It's a big leap, in 2005, the charter fleet in India was only half the present size and about 60% of aircraft were in Delhi. 

Elsewhere in India, small planes parked in small airports spell convenience. "When it comes to chartering, there is a wider choice of aircraft now,'' says Manish Kalani, Indore based managing director of Entertainment World Developers Pvt Ltd. 

"Also, till about five years ago, aircraft had to be chartered from either Delhi or Mumbai. The local charter companies play a significant role in everyday decision-making: I can take a last-minute decision to fly to, say, Nanded and be airborne in a couple of hours.'' 

With flying training schools too putting out their aircraft for charter, not only has the cost of chartering an aircraft come down greatly, the choice too has become varied. "Four-seater Cessna 172 aircraft are available for as little as Rs 50 per kilometre. The minimum booking charge would come to Rs 10,000 and that would be for a 200-km trip,'' says Capt Dipti Goenka, director of OneSky Aviation, a company that provides consultancy and handles 60 charter aircraft across 12 cities. 

Dirtcheap aircraft like Cessna 172s are generally not available for charter from metros, but Delhi does have a six-seater Piper Seneca which goes for Rs 100 per kilometre. With the availability of charter aircraft across the country, ferry fees too have been done away in the fare equation. 

"Earlier, if a person from, say, Ahmedabad needed to fly to Jaipur , the aircraft would fly in from Mumbai or Delhi. So the customer ended up paying for the to-and-fro flight of the aircraft from its base station,'' says Capt Goenka. The other factor is the ready availability of aircraft. This is probably because the demand has not picked up greatly—for instance, the Commonwealth Games have not brought even a single order for chartered aircraft. 

"We charter aircraft to fly between non-metros, and in the last two years particularly we have never had problems procuring an aircraft even in places like Banswaada, Rajasthan,'' says Mukesh Patel, who charters aircraft for spiritual guru Asaram Bapu. 

However, not all aircraft listed under the NSOP category are available for chartering. "There are quite a few aircraft registered under NSOP, especially jets, but which are never available for charter,'' says a charter company executive based in Mumbai. 

"Those aircraft are kept for private use, though registered under the NSOP category to evade octroi.'' Therein lies one of the biggest problems facing the charter industry. "Octroi evasion tactics by a handful of corporates brought all the charter companies under the government scanner in the last three years,'' says an operator from Mumbai, adding that genuine charter companies which have been around for over a decade were hauled up by the government officials. 

"Several companies had to produce hundreds of documents to prove that they are genuinely into charters,'' he adds. The other problem is the lengthy two-to-three-day procedure involved in getting permission for operating an international charter.