Paramount launches (and this website relaunches)

Paramount Airways launched its first flight last week (Sept 7th).

With the new entrant in the civil aviation sector, Paramount Airways, securing the licence to import the 70-seater Embraer jet, the all Business class seats configuration airline, is set to take-off with its inaugural flight between Madurai and Coimbatore on September 7.

M. Thiagarajan, Managing Director of Paramount Airways, told The Hindu here on Thursday that the Union Minister of State for Civil Aviation, Praful Patel, would inaugurate the maiden Madurai-Coimbatore flight. From September 8, the airline will begin daily flights linking Coimbatore to New Delhi and then on to Kochi.

It remains to be seen how far Paramount will actually get. Its focus at the start is on the "long thin" routes, sectors that haven't been served by traditional carriers that focus on volume. I believe this is a good strategy for a number of reasons:

1. You have a small number of aircraft, with a small number of seats. Yes, the breakeven load factor will be higher, but the absolute number of seats you need to fill will be lower than for a larger aircraft. Chances are: with their 70 seater aircraft, they will need to fill just about 50 to 55 seats per flight. Shouldn't be too hard.
2. You don't fight with other carriers for passengers, and therefore you don't get into a price war. When you're starting out, even if you have deep pockets, people like Jet and Kingfisher have even deeper pockets and will kill you. Better keep a low profile till you have a critical mass of assets and customers, before trying to steal market share from the incumbents.
3. You don't fight for airport slots. Look at the logjam at Mumbai and Delhi now, and you'll see what I mean. The congestion plays havoc with your schedules and punctuality. If your target customers are business men, you need both to ensure survival.

Pricing - I don't know. Coimbatore to Delhi at Rs 13,999 (USD 320) is high for a flight time of just under 3 hours. Well, high by international standards, but considering their value lies in the class of service they plan, it might make for a competitive concept.

Their website sucks royally. It's really bad. I little bird told me that I7's management is very, shall we say, tight-fisted. The focus on their booking system and website is less on customer service and reliability, and more on cost per transaction. Fyi, their booking engine is the same one powering Kingfisher (and was built for Kingfisher). If the booking engine does not perform as required, there's going to be a ruckus.

- posted by katongking @ 1:26 pm