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Wadia also operates a “flexible fleet plan”.He reduces the fleet during the low seasonand increases it in the high season. “BecauseIndia is a cyclical market and the costs are toohigh, we looked at how we could be flexibleand agile. The solution is bringing in aircraftin October and getting rid of them by June,”he said.GoAir is able to acquire short-term, wetleasedaircraft from operators in Europe,where the peak travel seasons are oppositeto India. “European operators have aircraftsitting on the ground and they are willingto heavily discount them. Also there are noadditional fixed costs for us because theseaircraft don’t come in to operate new routes,they come to add frequency to existingroutes,” he said.Wadia lists other issues that are damagingLCCs’ chances of improving profitability.Among these are infrastructure constraints.“We don’t have enough parking spaces toallow us to have six [to] nine aircraft per base,therefore reducing the cost of running a nineor 10 aircraft fleet plan,” he said. “You haveto park three in one city, two in another city,one in another and four or five in another. SoBRIEFLYGoAir managing director JehangirWadia: he’s expecting a price warultimately it doesn’t help you reduce costs; itmeans you have higher costs.”Take-off and landing rights are alsoscarce, particularly at major airports. Thisreduces a carrier’s ability to capitalize byadding frequencies on primary routes,thereby achieving economies of scale. Theyare forced to put capacity on to secondaryroutes where margins per seat are less. “Themore you have to do it, the worse it gets,”said Wadia.G oA i r h a s no pla n s t o expandinternationally in the foreseeable future.“To be successful in Asia you need to have avery large critical mass in India,” said Wadia.“Unless you have that it is pointless pickingprice wars with the likes of Tiger Airways andAirAsia. You must have at least 15 millionpassengers flying on your airline before youcan think of going international.”For now, Wadia will stay with a smallfleet focussing on existing routes ratherthan expansion. “Basically you have tostabilize your existing fleet, be the numberone operator on the routes you have and makesure these routes are insulated. Do not growunless you are number one on these routes,”he said.“Ultimately GoAir finds it easier todefend 11 airports than it would defending30. We are in a consolidation phase and wefind that to be a very prudent strategy untilthe industry turns. Then we will be moreaggressive in our fleet plans.”SR Technics opens Indian officeSR TECHNICS, which is now owned by a Middle Eastconsortium that includes Dubai Aerospace Enterprise(DAE), opened its first sales office in India on February 1.“The Indian aviation market is in the midst of sizeable growth,”said Declan O’Shea, SR Technics’ executive vice-president sales,marketing and business integration at the office’s opening inMumbai.“By opening a sales office we can be as close and responsive aspossible to our customers and their needs.”SR Technics has had a regional office in Hong Kong since 1996.Training centre joint ventureATR and Air Deccan have opened a joint training centrein Bangalore to train the carrier’s pilots for the 36 ATRs,including 30 ATR 72-500s, the low-cost carrier hasordered since 2005.The centre is equipped with a full flight trainer developedjointly by ATR and Canadian simulator manufacturer, MechtronixSystems. See p.12, Double or nothing at Air Deccan.Mechtronix has secured more than 100 customers worldwidesince introducing its first flight training device product line in 1997.A year ago, it beat the big brand names when the Civil AviationFlight University of China (CAFUC) ordered three “Ascent” fullflightsimulators (one B737-800 and two Citations) and six flighttraining devices from the company.MARCH 2007 ORIENT AVIATION INDIA 17