Another India Based Airline to start flying international - Guess Which One ??

Indian Aviation has some very archaic rules about domestic airlines being able to fly international routes, rules that tend to favour international airlines more than our domestic airlines - but it seems another airline has finally managed to break this barrier - Go Air, India's fifth largest airline, with almost 8% market share has finally been given the go ahead to fly international routes.

Based on a news report, they applied for permit to fly to 14 countries but were granted rights for only 9 countries: Iran, China, Vietnam, Maldives, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Their request to fly to Kuwait, Turkey, Thailand, UAE and Oman was rejected, no reasons given. One can only speculate whether this is due to lobbying by Air India and Jet or some other more technical reason. I can imagine UAE and Thailand being lucrative routes (and also perhaps over crowded), could end up being a setback to Go Air.

What's interesting about their choice is countries like Iran, Vietnam, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are currently not served by any other Indian airlines. So they chose places that don't have (much) competition. I think that's a great move by Go Air. How it would translate in terms of actual business revenue, is another story altogether.

I checked a little more on Go Air's flight plan - it seems like the permits they have received are mostly from Delhi and Bombay to fly to these destinations, with the exception of Qatar (which will be ex- Bangalore and Kochi) and Saudi Arabia (ex-Kochi, Trivandrum, Hyderabad and Kannur to Damman only; no Jeddah and Riyadh for now)

Currently if one needs to fly to Ho Chi Minh or Baku, one can use Air India's star alliance partners like SQ or Etihad (Jet Airways' partner). I also noticed a thrice a week service between Tehran and India by Mahan Air (Iran's flagship airline). Even more interesting, there seem to be flights between Amritsar and Uzbeskistan by Uzbekistan Airways. Goes back to my point that international airlines have it easy when it comes to flying into India, vs Indian airlines flying abroad.

Go Air came into existence around the same time as Spice Jet and Indigo but has been much slower in growing, compared to both of them. Kudos to them though for slugging it out in the Indian Aviation market. Though they have been in business for more than 5 years (one of the criteria's to fly international), they did not have the required 20 planes for acquiring the license to do so. Well, it seems June 2016 they finally got that 20th plane and are now headed abroad.

I have travelled Go Air twice, way back in 2008 and I was thoroughly impressed with them, their staff, their food offering and I remember writing in my flightdiary entry that I would love to fly them again. Unfortunately that did not materialize. But with them flying to Maldives and Azerbaijan soon, who knows.

GoAir has also placed a large order of A320 NEOs, which I think will be used for their expansion in the international market to destinations that are in the range of those aircraft - the only type currently in their fleet. Whether they continue to grow on their own or would they be acquired by some other budding airline for their international flying license (Like Kingfisher did with Deccan Airlines), is something time will tell. But I personally do hope they continue to grow on their own. More competition is always a good thing for the passengers. So good luck to GoAir for their new destinations!