Low-cost airline Deccan (formerly Air Deccan) plans to operate on international routes from three destinations in India from August this year, the airline's top official said.
"We are planning to start international flights from Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore from August 2008," Capt G R Gopinath, Executive Chairman, Deccan, told reporters on the sidelines of the inauguration of the airline's first hangar in Chennai on Wednesday.
Deccan will complete five years of domestic operation by that period. Gopinath, however did not elaborate further on the issue.
The hangar in Chennai has been built at a cost of Rs 11.50 crore (Rs 115 million) and has a total construction area of 3,200 square metres, with space for one Airbus A-320 and two ATR aircraft at a single point of time, Gopinath said.
The facility would provide basic and medium level maintenance checks and protective storage to the combined fleet of Kingfisher-Deccan fleet, apart from functioning as an enclosed repair shop or assembly area.
It is also equipped with an engineering and training facility and a state-of-the-art medium level engineering maintenance conference room. He said Kingfisher-Deccan was shortlisting a few international companies to set up an MRO (Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul) facility at Bangalore and would finalise it in the next few months.
Kingfisher-Deccan is a strategic alliance between Vijay Mallya's UB Group promoted Kingfisher Airlines and low cost Air Deccan based out of Bangalore. It is the largest airline in India with 80 aircraft, connecting 69 destinations and operating over 570 flights daily.