Scoot eyes non-metro cities for India growth

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ChatGPT to plan their itinerary, and then visiting travel agents to book their flights and holidays. Scoot currently flies to six destinations in India and plans to resume operations to Chennai from 5 November. It also seeks to tap the potential in other Indian international airports, such as the upcoming airports in Jewar and Navi Mumbai.

It, however, should comply with certain restrictions under the air services agreement. The India-Singapore pact was last expanded in 2013, whereby the capacity entitlements for carriers for both sides were raised to 29,400 weekly passenger seats for domestic carriers and to 28,700 weekly seats from Singapore for airlines registered there. Also, a memorandum of understanding was signed by the two nations in 2006 that designated Indian and Singaporean airlines to have unlimited access between 18 Indian cities and Singapore.

However, Scoot said the air service agreement needs to be reviewed to accommodate new airports as well. “There is a golden age of new airports in India. But, the constraint is that these new airports are not being added to the air services agreements, these are generally government to government discussions...they don’t move quickly...there is increasing demand from Chandigarh, Nagpur, and Indore, but we cannot consider them as it is not included in the air services agreement," he said.

Addition of non-metro cities with robust demand makes sense for the airline as it has seen a new type of Indian traveller, who wants to explore new destinations, emerge since covid-related curbs eased. “There was some change during covid, when people did not want to drive for 8-9 hours to reach an airport -- they wanted convenience. But the constraint is these new airports or