Zoom Air, India’s newest full-service airline launched its first flight today, on February 12, from Delhi to Durgapur. Union Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju flagged off the airline’s inaugural flight. In the initial stages, the commuter airline will be operation in many Indian capitals, New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Hyderabad. Zoom Air is based in Gurgaon and is promoted by Zexus Air Services, a firm based in Delhi. Zoom Air’s operations are with Bombardier CR-J200 LR series twin-engine jet aircraft. These aircraft have been used by Club One Air in India, but that is a charter airline. The airline will be a full service, as it will also provide meals on board.
Zoom Airline will be the first one to connect Durgapur with daily flights to busy airports like New Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai and commuters will get premium services on board. Similarly, Shillong will get daily connectivity to the important cities.
I am not sure what to make of this news. There is full fare aircraft that has no history except chartered aviation. The aircraft they are coming with is small CRJ 200 which has a maximum capacity of 40 passengers. There are no other details out there. Does this product have business class seats? I am not a fan of ATR planes and this is even smaller than ATR. So I expect really lengthy flights as the sector they have selected is Delhi-Kolkata.
It is good news that people have more options to 3rd tier towns like Durgapur and aviation is perpetually non-existent in north-eastern India. So, this can be considered as an opportunity for them. Only time will tell how they fare. I definitely love the colors though and the name which is like a comic character from DC Comic’s Flash.
[…] we wrote about the launch of Zoom Air in February. It is the latest arrival into Indian civil aviation that wants to connect Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns […]