Full service: first Vistara flight lands in Mumbai from Delhi

The flight of the new Vistara full-service airline landed in Mumbai today from Delhi, bringing new competition to the dangerous Indian aviation space which already has sunk Kingfisher Airlines and sees SpiceJet in deep turbulence.

The Tata-Singapore Airlines joint venture marks the re-entry of the Tata Group in the airline business after it was forced out of the business after a government takeover 60-odd years ago.

The Tata Group also holds a 30-per cent stake in the domestic arm of the Malaysian budget airline AirAsia India.

Vistara will be the third full-service carrier in the country after state-run Air India (which is only afloat on taxpayer money) and private carrier Jet Airways.

The Tata Group had last year announced a 51:49 joint venture with Singapore Airlines to launch a full-service carrier in India.

The airline had applied to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for the flying permit in April last year but could get it only late last year, after a delay of almost nine months.

On 18 December, Vistara had announced the launch of its operations from 9 January with flights between Delhi, Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

Vistara, which has two leased A320s as of now, will operate 148-seater Airbus A320-200 with 16 seats in business class, 36 in premium economy and 96 in economy on these routes.

The airline will operate flights from its Delhi base to Goa, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Srinagar, Jammu and Patna in the first year, the airline had stated in the plan, submitted to DGCA at the time of applying for AOP.

It plans to operate 87 flights in the first year, with five leased Airbus A-320s, and then scale it up to 301 flights by the fourth year with a fleet of A320s.