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Interview

Can you please elaborate on the po-tential that exists for growth of busi-ness aviation market in India? The past and projected future growth of general business aviation in India has been driven by the strong economic growth the country has witnessed. Air travel was once considered a luxury for both business and private needs, This perception has now changed as savings in travel time, comfort and convenience and higher reliability compared to oth-er modes of travel have outweighed the cost differential. The poor connectivity between the metros and Smaller cities are why more and more companies and individuals are realising the benefits of using private jets and helicopters. Fi-nally, the surge of tourist traffic into In-dia has been a key driver of the growth of the general aviation sector in the country.

As the economy is poised to grow rapidly in the next few years, I expect the business aviation in India to grow even faster.

What are the bottlenecks which hin-ders realization of this potential?There are many challenges.

a. The sector does not get enough importance from regulators and policy makers.

b. The operating guidelines for busi-ness operators need to be modi-fied as per the needs of the opera-tors.

c. Big metro private airports do not encourage Business Aviation movements so that they can ac-commodate more bigger aircraft from scheduled airlines

d. The cost of operations at the In-dian airports are exorbitant espe-cially as metro airports

What facilitating policy environ-ments are required for business avia-tion market to flourish?The government should take the fol-lowing initiatives:

a) The government should make BA as its priority area

b) There should be encouragement provided to the sector by easing the regulatory guidelines and pro-cedures

c) Private airport operators must bring down the cost of operations

Do you think regulatory and licens-ing authorities like DGCA have been playing the role of an enlightened facilitator for the development of business aviation / charter business in India?There has been some development in the past few years in this domain after consistent persuasion by the operator community. However, much still needs to be done by the regulators to ensure the well being of the sector.

The rule under DGCA CAP 3100 manual, “If an applicant imports an aircraft that is unfamiliar to a DGCA flight operations inspector (FOI), it is the responsibility of the applicant to train the FOI,” has become a source

Club One Air is among India’s oldest and largest business air charter company. Under Mr Bhupesh Joshi, its dynamic CEO & Director, the company has seen remarkable financial turnaround and is on a high growth path. Mr Joshi has worked in various Indian and International Airlines/Airports at the high-est level. He has also served as MD of BAOA and Ex-Chairman of Airline Operation Committee (AOC), IATA at Delhi Airport. Excerpts from an interview with Vishal Kashyap

37 | AVIATION WORLD | MAY-JUNE 2015

of raging controversy and much re-sentment among business aircraft operators. Could you please elabo-rate on the objections and impact of this rule? These rules were drafted more for large scheduled Airlines and are definitely re-quired to be relooked for General Avia-tion Operators. The training for FOI is only for the new type of Aircraft certi-fied in India and not for the one which has already been certified and flying. For the last so many years the train-ing of FOI on new type certification is always done by the OEM and Opera-tor has no role to play in this. I am sure that DGCA will directly take this up with OEM.

Regional connectivity has become a favorite theme of government to-day? You think smaller routes are a viable proposition in India? Or all these talks will only lead to invest-

ment and wastage of public money in upgrading non-viable airports without having concomitant ben-efits?The demand for charter jets from major Tier-I cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chen-nai and Hyderabad has increased the demand from the smaller Tier-II and Tier-III cities has also increased which is helping India’s private jet business mar-ket to grow and at a very remarkable pace.

For example, even smaller cities with populations of under two million like Ludhiana in Punjab are seeing a sig-nificant rise in private jet charter traffic. With demand now coming in from Pun-jab in the north to Kerala in the south, it is easy to see how India has secured its position among the world’s top five private jet growth markets, which is a clear sign that India’s wealth and inter-national business interests expand far beyond the major metropolitan hubs.

Driven in part by the country’s property and manufacturing boom, India is ex-periencing economic growth which in turn fuels demand for private jets.

Club One Air has been a pioneer in its field. How do you see your busi-ness prospects in the coming years?Our goals for the year are that we look forward towards our expansion plan by inducting more aircraft and setting new benchmark for achieving Operational and Service Excellence as the vision 2015. We take great pride and satisfac-tion to announce phenomenal upward growth in our performance in areas of Operations. Addition of Falcon 2000 to our fleet as per our expansion plan; launched Hi Club magazine, a revolu-tion in the charter industry which of course is now in its 5th issue.

Our future plan is to implementa-tion ERP and E commerce solutions and to re-open base in western region.

We see a lot of potential growth in the Western and Southern Region in the near future therefore have made Mumbai as our base and very soon would also make Surat as our base.

What are your plans for fleet and service expansions? We inducted a falcon 2000 (8 Luxury seating) in 2014 and would be induct-ing another falcon (10 luxury seating) in 2015 making our fleet size of 9 aircraft. Our consistent quality performance has earned us the coveted 2014 Annual AS-SOCHAM award for being declared as the Best General Aviation Company for the Year 2014 alongside the prestigious ISO Certification.

–Vishal Kashyap is Managing Editor, Aviation World

Our goals for the year are that we look

forward towards our expansion plan by inducting more

aircraft and setting new benchmark

for achieving Operational and

Service Excellence as the vision 2015.