The Hindu Business Line : AI Regional taking to the skies

New Delhi, Sept. 11 Get set to fly Air India Regional, the new name for the smaller variety of turbo-prop ATR and Canadian Regional Jet aircraft in the airline fleet. Later this month a 44-seater ATR aircraft bearing the new name would begin operations to Kanpur from here.

This flight is likely to be followed with the national capital being connected with both Kullu and Allahabad with an ATR aircraft.

The newly created airline plans to induct three Canadian Regional Jet (CRJ) for which it recently concluded negotiations in London.

The aircrafts are expected to join the fleet in October this year and would be utilised to operate on thin routes like Delhi-Khajurao sector that do not have enough traffic for a 100-seater aircraft but can easily be used to fill up a 70-seater aircraft.

Currently Alliance Air, a 100 per cent subsidiary of Indian operates the ATR aircraft in the airline fleet.

Both Indian and Air India have now been merged into National Aviation Company of India and a new airline also called Air India has been created.

An indicative list of 16 city pairs on which this type of aircraft could be used has been drawn up by Accenture, the consultants hired to draw up a road map for the merger of Air India and Indian.

The aircraft would operate in a single class configuration and some basic food service would be provided keeping in mind the short duration of the flights, airline officials said.