New airline launches in India amid challenging times posed by Covid-19 outbreak

A new Indian airline has launched in a country badly hit by the coronavirus pandemic and at a time of massive challenges for the aviation sector. Flybig, the latest entrant into India's highly competitive aviation sector, started commercial operations on Jan 3 with an inaugural flight connecting Indore in Madhya Pradesh state to Ahmedabad in Gujarat. The airline, which is operating three flights a week on this route, has started with two planes and plans to scale up to 20 aircraft with 40 to 50 routes in three years' time, said its chief executive, Captain Srinivas Rao. He said the start-up, which operates the turboprop ATR-72, would focus on regional connectivity but admitted that times were challenging. The airline has 20 per cent to 24% occupancy. "In fact, the plan was to launch at the end of March or April (last year) and everything was put on hold," said Capt Rao, adding that the airline kept its launch low key. "I think in Covid-19 times, where do you start beating the drum? What we are looking to do is connect people and places which are underserved. We believe we have our own space where we can work. There is a lot of growth in this tier 2 space, which hasn't been tapped." Tier 2 cities have populations between 50,000 and 100,000. Still, the new airline is taking off at a time when aviation, not just in India, is facing its worst challenge as a result of the pandemic greatly shrinking air travel.<br/>