IPA announces NZ-India direct air service

UPDATE: This article was originally run as an April Fool joke. None of its contents are to be taken seriously

A new Macau based pan Asian budget international airline is set to begin operations connecting Pacific and South Asian destinations beginning August this year.

In the first twelve to eighteen months of its operations, India Pasifika Airlines will connect Pacific urban centres like Auckland, Brisbane, Sydney, Nadi and Hawaii with major destinations in South Asia such as Mumbai, New Delhi, Colombo and Dhaka, senior airline officials revealed at a media conference in Auckland yesterday.

“The trunk routes will be serviced by our Airbus A380 aircraft while we will also run hub and spoke operations within Australia and flying between Nadi and Brisbane employing modern smaller jets like the Embraer 190,” Executive Director – South East Asia Operations, Asanka Senaviratne told media and a large gathering of travel agents at a prestigious hotel in downtown Auckland.

Initially, Auckland will be connected to Mumbai with a once a week A380 service via a halt in Brisbane. However, passengers can fly to New Delhi via Sydney from where there will be two flights a week – one each serviced by a Boeing 777-300ER and A380 aircraft (passengers will have to make their own way to Sydney from New Zealand cities).

Flights to Colombo and Dhaka will also depart from Sydney though they will be routed through Kuala Lumpur or Singapore, Mr Senaviratne said. Both these flights will be Boeing 777-300ER.

According to aviation industry studies traffic between South Asia and Pacific destinations are tipped to grow by 17.5 per cent over the next seven years, the airline’s Brisbane based manager for Australia and New Zealand Frederick Wu Zhang told Indian Weekender. The airline was planning to take on the early mover advantage on this sunrise sector, he said. But not many budget airlines fly the A380, an aviation industry source told Indian Weekender.

Singapore based Mr Senaviratne said the airline was planning on adding another direct Auckland-India flight in the next 18 months depending on how the proposed free trade agreement between India and New Zealand would proceed. “We expect both passenger and freight traffic to grow between India and New Zealand as the FTA unfolds,” he told Indian Weekender.

“With the progress of the FTA, quarantine rules were likely to be altered and there was a possibility of flying fresh foodstuffs from India to New Zealand including the much sought after Alfonso mangoes and other Indian fruit which would arrive fresh in our refrigerated fresh food freight compartments on A380 aircraft,” he added.

Robert F. Palaniappan, the airline’s Director of Cabin Services said that the in-flight service would have a decidedly South Asian flavour. “The cuisine and entertainment programme will not just be Indian or South Asian in the sense that other airlines look at it.

“We will have specific Sri Lankan cuisine for flights flying there and on Indian destination flights we will cater to North Indian, South Indian, Gujarati and pure vegetarian preferences separately – it will be like a South Asian food court on our spacious A380 aircraft.

“Similarly the hi tech and on demand entertainment system would have the largest selection of South Asian and Bollywood films and music,” he said. Despite being a budget airline, India Pasifika would extend all these facilities as standard offerings, he added.

Passengers would be able to make their food selection at the time of booking. The travel agents present were given a live demonstration of the new high tech booking system developed by a consortium of software companies based in India and Silicon Valley, California. The airline’s Macau based Financial Controller Vasili Korushnikov said the system had a number of firsts in the airline industry and was being looked at with interest by other airlines.

Mr Senaviratne said the airline would launch operations with an aggressive marketing campaign with a “unique and engaging” frequent flyer programme and “very, very interesting invitation round trip prices.”

Asked for an indication of how the initial promotional tickets would be discount-priced, both Mr Senaviratne and Mr Korushnikov declined to comment. “Please have patience. Wait and watch. We are sure the wait will be worthwhile,” Mr Korushnikov, who is of Russian origin, said.

The Macau based airline group is a global consortium formed by Indian, Hong Kong, Singapore, US and Pacific-based investors. Reports say that a couple of New Zealand based Indians also have a stake in the company, although Indian Weekender was unable to confirm this fact at the time of publication.

The top management of the company is believed to be run by aviation professionals from all over the world including India and Sri Lanka.

A travel agent from Singapore on a visit to Auckland who was at the media conference told Indian Weekender that the highly successful airline had launched regional services in North East Asian destinations late last year at “Unbelievably low prices.”

The man, who did not wish to be named, said a source within the airline’s route planning and marketing offices in South East Asia had indicated to him that India Pasifika Airlines would launch at prices like NZ$650-700 for a round trip as an invitation price for the Auckland-Mumbai sector.

Both Mr Senaviratne and Mr Wu Zhang said the airline would keep the media in New Zealand posted about the progress toward the launch of the services later this year.

Indian Weekender readers can register by clicking this link to receive news updates and ticketing prices in the run up to the launch of the airline.