India’s Vistara focuses on Europe as it aims half of flights on overseas routes  

INDIAN airline, Vistara aims to deploy half of its capacity to international routes in the next five years as it focuses on new flights to Europe next year.

The chief executive of the airline Leslie Thng said his company would look at the UK’s Heathrow airport and at a later stage of its growth plans, direct flight services to Australia and the US.

“We want to start flights to Europe as soon as possible,” Thng told reporters on Wednesday (7) in Singapore.

He said the airline was prepared to invest in purchasing slots in London as part of the company’s efforts to expand its business globally.

Vistara, a joint venture of Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines started its first international flight from Delhi to Singapore on Tuesday (6).

The airline will start flying from Mumbai to Singapore on Wednesday (7), Mumbai to Dubai from August 21 and Delhi to Bangkok from August 27.

The Singapore flights will be operated by Airbus A320s from October, said Thng.

Northern Indian city, Gurgaon based airline plans to shortly start flights to the South Asian cities- Colombo and Kathmandu.

Vistara aims to end 2019 with 41 aircraft, up from 30 at present, Thng noted.

Many international and domestic slots have been allocated to Vistara and other Indian airlines on a temporary basis as India’s grounded airline, Jet Airways undergoes bankruptcy proceedings.

Thng said his company has requested the Indian government to let it continue using the slots, irrespective of whether Naresh Goyal founded airline is revived by a new investor.

Vistara has appointed 600 former Jet Airways employees, including over 100 pilots

The airline now connects 25 destinations including Singapore. It operates over 1200 flights a week served by a fleet of 23 Airbus A320 and six Boeing 737-800NG aircraft and has flown more than 15 million customers since starting operations in 2015.

Last year, Vistara placed its aircraft order of a combination of purchased and leased aircraft totalling 50 from the Airbus A320neo family (including the A321neo) for domestic India as well as short and medium-haul international operations, with deliveries scheduled between 2019 and 2023.

Additionally, the airline has purchased six Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner aircraft that are scheduled to be delivered between 2020 and 2021 and will be used for long-haul international operations.

Vistara is still witnessing losses, but the company is moving towards profitability, the right direction, Thng said.

The company aims to expand the fleet to about 60-70 aircraft by 2023.