Ok, some info came out about Paramount Airways in the Hindu (a south Indian daily) yesterday.
Their top boss (who is a textile magnate) is quoted as saying he should get all the type acceptance issues (he is using ERJs which is new to this country for airline operations) sorted out in a few days with the DGCA (the Indian regulator). The first of five aircraft ordered should be soon here as well and the cockpit crew recruited are now undergoing training at Montreal.
Big plans about how he is going to revolutionise the industry including kiosk ticketing at Supermarkets (a little slow here as Deccan has already beaten them to it with ticketing from a major chain of cyber cafes), also frequent flyer plans ...(even before the airline has got off the ground...) etc. But also it has to be said that Paramout has never said they are going o be a LCC from the very beginning.
Sone details of the first routes.. the report quotes their chief guy as saying they will operate from Coimbatore in the south (and a centre of the textile industry)-Delhi, Cochin-Delhi and Chennai Coimbatore. Now the first two are 3 hour sectors at the very least, and I can already predict Indian Airlines is going to slash fares the moment he gets his time table out. They are already operating a one stop service via BOM.Same for DEL-COK, where Jet, Indian Airlines and Sahara all operate one stop services with already cheapo fares, so .......
His third sector is Chennai Coimbatore, a 50 min sector where full service Jet Airways already undercuts LCC Air Deccan 6 days out of 7 on an average, so things will get warm here as well.
Anyway interesting to watch what is going to happen..... No doubt Paramounts decision to base out of Coimbatore is not bad as there is good traffic out there, but I feel the promoters are rather underestimating the likely response of the main line carriers....
Let us wait and see.