Air Asia India to fly from 12 June 2014...unless...

And so it is final. After months of effort and one stumbling block after another, Air Asia India will fly the Indian skies from 12 June 2014. Bookings will be accepted starting tomorrow - 30 May 2014. They got their DGCA permit on 7 May 2014, and their first aircraft arrived around that time too.



The DGCA cleared the proposed flight schedules earlier today (29 May 2014), and both Tony Fernandes of Air Asia, and Mittu Chandilya of Air Asia India tweeted quite enthusiastic about the whole thing.

The first flight was originally expected to be ex-Chennai, as was the location of their India base, but I have word that both of these might change - possibly to Bangalore.

And while I'm certainly looking forward to Air Asia to enter the Indian market, I'm not entirely sure if they will actually take off on the 12th of June. The new government in India was sworn in a few days back, and the new Minister for Civil Aviation took charge today. Subramanian Swamy, a politician from the current ruling party, has been opposing Air Asia's entry for the longest time. So the new civil aviation minister thinks there might actually be a reason for this opposition, and so plans to look into it. Bottomline is, there's a likelihood that Air Asia India's plans might be disrupted a bit. Fingers crossed.


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