With the entry of new players and expansion of the existing airlines, the southern aviation market is going through a see-saw competition, thereby, providing more options for passengers.

To begin with, non-scheduled carrier Air Freedom has obtained the Civil Aviation Ministry’s nod to acquire 14 new aircrafts. The carrier plans to operate regional flights in southern markets in the next seven months. “We target to start our operations from August this year. We already have the ministry’s approval to buy 20 aircrafts (ATRs and Bombardier). We have identified 26 airports in south India and are in process of setting up facilities at these airports. There is a huge potential in the southern market for regional connectivity. South is the only region where you have three metros – Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai – as connecting points to the entire country and abroad,” said Rajkumar Krishnan, vice-president (corporate affairs), Air Freedom. Air Freedom is a part of Mumbai-based Freedom Aviation promoted by Delta Corp.

Similarly, low-cost carrier SpiceJet recently announced that it would buy 30 Bombardier aircrafts to launch services in smaller cities for regional connectivity. A company official, on condition of anonymity, said most of these services would be in southern region.

According to industry experts, passenger traffic in southern India is likely to grow over 20-22 per cent in the next three years, which would be marginally over 18-20 per cent of the expected industry growth. “South offers big business opportunity as the region has the maximum number of airports. The growth will come from tier two and three cities. With new players coming in, passengers will have an option of better pricing,” said an industry player.

The southern market amounts to over 30 per cent of the total passenger traffic. In November, domestic carriers flew 48.75 lakh passengers, of which around 10 lakh came from south India.

The growing number of flight frequencies may pose a challenge for Chennai-based Paramount Airways, which has been struggling to get back to business for quite sometime.

The carrier, whose operations had come to a halt after the directorate general of civil aviation cancelled its license to operate flights in July, has sought the ministry’s permission to acquire 11 aircrafts. An aviation ministry official said that the proposal had been deferred due to unavailability of parking letters. The carrier, however, has got the ministry’s nod to purchase eight Airbus 320 and six Bombardier Q400 aircrafts and to wet-lease three A320 and three Boeing 737 aircrafts.

However, the company is yet to resume operations. A company official said that the delay was due to some paper formalities and the operations would be restored soon. The carrier will restart flights on all its routes, including Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, Cochin, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Visakhapatnam , Trichy, Goa, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Agartala, Guwahati and Delhi.

“We may have lost our passengers but we are going to get them back once we are fully operational. Also, we are into premium segment, whereas newer players are going to be in different segments. So, there is no competition,” said M. Thiagarajan, managing director, Paramount Airways.