Chennai, Amritsar will be first 2 cities to be serviced.
By Sreekanth A. Nair
Scoot, the low-cost and medium-haul subsidiary of the Singapore Airlines Group (SIA) announced on Friday that the company will start flight service from Singapore to Chennai and Amritsar from May onwards and between Singapore and Jaipur from October.
According to a report in The Times of India, with the introduction of these flights Singapore Airlines Group will become the biggest foreign airline company in India in terms of the number of subsidiaries operating and the cities of which it has a service to the country.
“The SIA Group is the largest foreign airline in India in terms of reach as SIA, Scoot, Silk and Tiger will fly to 15 cities in the country. This is the largest after Air India (in terms of offering direct international flights out of Indian cities). Our strategy is to develop a new market (city) by launching flights with Silk or Tiger. And then when the market grows, deploy wide-body planes of SIA or Scoot,” Bharath Mahadevan, country head of Scoot, told Times of India.
The Gurgaon-based Vistara Airline, in which SIA has 49 percent share, is also expected to start international service soon once the expected relaxation of rules for Indian airline companies to begin foreign services.
All passenger airlines of the group will have the presence in India after it starts the service of Scoot.
“SIA used to operate on the Amritsar-Singapore route from 2004 to 2008. The load factors were good at about 70%. But the full-service model was not suited for this route. The A-320s of Tiger did not have the range for this route. So now we restart this route with Scoot that operates Dreamliners on a low-cost model,” Mahadevan said.
The group is also planning to penetrate into India-Australia and India-Bali markets with low-cost service. At present, the average rates in these routes are $1029 and $588, respectively. The rate will be only half of the current rate once they start operation in the routes.
“To mark its launch in India, Scoot is offering a limited-time promotion from now till 2129 hours on Thursday (April 28) for guests booking from India to Scoot’s destinations across its network. One-way economy fares from Chennai, Amritsar and Jaipur start from $64 to Singapore and $189 to Sydney, $179 and $459 for ScootBiz to Singapore and Sydney respectively,” Scoot said in a statement.