With a revival in domestic air traffic numbers, Paramount Airways, the all-business class airline, has added around 200 flights to its
network in the past two months. It has set a target of 2,500 flights per month by the end of the current fiscal from the current level of 2,000. The proposed capacity addition would take place through adding more aircraft to its fleet and increasing the number of seats.

Paramount Airways’ managing director M Thyagrajan told ET: “We will connect more metros to smaller cities over the next two months.” Starting February, the airline will take a dozen turboprops planes on lease, which will have capacity of around 75 seats each. This will be to cater to smaller cities across the country. The aircraft purchase will be financed by loans from either Exim Bank or European Central Bank. Currently, Paramount has a fleet of five Embraer aircraft.

These turboprop planes will fly to destinations in Jharkhand and Meghalaya, apart from Cooch Behar in West Bengal. Destinations in the south like Pondicherry, Mysore, Salem, Bellary will also be catered to. Eventually, Paramount expects to cover 40 destinations by 2011 from 17 destinations today in the country.

Analysts say the stability in ATF prices, which constitute about a half of an airline’s operational expenses, and a gradual turnaround in domestic traffic have been triggers for Paramount to increase capacity. Domestic aviation traffic has grown 7.8% in 2009 to 4.45 crore passengers compared to what it was a year ago.

Source: ECONOMIC TIMES