“Almost an end to vested interests. Power to the people. Well done @narendramodi. You kept your word,” Fernandes wrote on microblogging site Twitter.
He was thanking Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi who has a reputation for turning Gujerat State in western India into an economic powerhouse in the region. He was then Chief Minister of the state.
Under the old 5/20 Rule, airlines in India could only fly abroad after five years in services but provided they had at least 20 aircraft. The new policy does away with the 5/20 rule.
AirAsia India is two years old, while Vistara completed 18 months in January this year.
“Initial reports on India is superb. Of course I think 20 aircraft is too many but thank you @narendramodi . Big day for Indian Aviation,” Fernandes tweeted.
AirAsia hold 49 per cent in AirAsia India, Tata Ltd 41 per cent and Arun Bhatia of Telestra Tradeplace Pvt. Ltd the rest.
“The amendments that have been made to the policy are encouraging,” said AirAsia India Chief Amar Abrol. “The National Civil Aviation Policy gives us clear direction to ramp up our operations in India and grow our business in the domestic segment before we scale our operations to fly international.”
He said that AirAsia India will invest aggressively in India and grow its present fleet of six aircraft to 20 soon.
Fernandes told Economic Times that he had just pushed the button with Amar to increase AirAsia India’s aircraft to 10 if not more by the end of the year. “We will go as soon as we can but we are also doing well in domestic actually,” he added. “The old policy forced us to become adaptive in domestic and that has been alright.”
“A lot will depend on getting pilots etc.”
He disclosed that AirAsia India will try and apply for international routes. “We are pushing ahead with aircraft acquisition,” he said. “For the last two years, we were just not sure what the policy was, and so we were kind of going slow but now I think we will push ahead after consultation with our partners at Tata.”
AirAsia India, according to Fernandes, is a big believer in Northeast India. About 60 per cent of the routes around AirAsia have been new routes and a couple of them in India have been brand new routes as well.