India's rich & famous fly in style !

Take a trip back in time. In fact as far back as the late 1930s when J.R.D. Tata became the first Indian to hold a private flying licence. Within a year, J.R.D. made his solo flight from Bombay to England, and by 1932 he set up Tata Airlines. It was only much later in 1998, that Vijaypat Singhania made another credible mark. Singhania also flew solo, in a micro-light plane from the UK to India in 22 days. J.R.D., of course, was the Father of Indian Aviation. His Tata Airlines is today the flag carrier Air-India, which completes 75 years of operation this year. Singhania, on the other hand, recently lifted off on a hot air balloon to a height of 69,000 feet, breaking all earlier held records. "Being 67 won't stop me," he told us then. "There is a lot to do before age will catch up." J.R.D. and Singhania are two of India's high profile aviators, yet aviation itself has failed to take off in the past. Indian liquor baron Vijay Mallya, for instance, started UB Air in 1990, "but when regulation demanded that I operate as an air-taxi service I backed out", he says.

Today Mallya is back in business, running the popular scheduled airliner Kingfisher Airlines. All planes from his earlier venture find place in a corporate fleet, his non-scheduled or private fleet of aircraft: an Airbus 320, a Boeing 727, a Gulfstream 3 and an HS125. Mallya is, however, not the only one. "There are about 150 planes that belong to companies under the non-scheduled category," says Kapil Kaul, chief executive officer, of consultancy firm Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation (India). That's not impressive. Given that in America, West Asia and Europe, nearly 150,000 general aircraft crisscross the skies annually. And it's not just that. "In India nearly 40% of these are 20 to 25 years old," says Kaul. Yet, examining past numbers is like looking through a narrow-focus lens. The growth of this business is directly linked to the state of the economy. With the economy now booming at 8-9 per cent annually, the shopping has begun, he adds. In the past five years, for instance, Indian industrialists have started taking to the air.

The city of Mumbai now has 15 private jets. Second in line is Delhi with an almost equal number of private planes. Third and surprisingly, is Pune, where the Poonawala family keeps a fleet of aircrafts. The Bajajs have a fair share, and so do the Kirloskars and the Chabbrias of Finolex. In Bangalore and Chennai, Deccan Aviation (the low-cost carrier Air Deccan's subsidiary) has a stronghold, though it's largely helicopters that ply this region. Among the bigger buyers of private planes is the Mukesh Ambani run Reliance Industries. Mukesh already owns a Gulfstream IV and a Global Express according to the company spokesperson, regularly flies on a Mumbai-London non-stop route on the latter. Next in his shopping list is an Airbus corporate jet. Mukesh's younger brother Anil, who runs ADAG, is also on the lookout for aircraft for his group. The Essar group, on its part, owns three planes. 'We have plants in Jamnagar and Hazira where air strips exist, but there is no airline service,' says a spokesperson. 'That's when owning your own plane helps.'

Plus there are visiting partners who need to be flown around on short notice. The Birlas, Mallya's United Breweries, the Sahara group, the Singhanias and ITC – all are out shopping. This is just a sampling. To understand this sudden flurry of activity go back five years again. Captain S.K. Malik, who runs an air charter service Span Air, had then drawn up plans to start a fractional ownership scheme. For a one-time investment of $110,000, he had 1/10th ownership of a helicopter on offer with 60 hours of flying time annually. 'I found not a single buyer,' he says. Today Malik prefers to concentrate on his air charter services business, waiting for delivery of a Hawker 850 that will primarily serve the Tata group. But with the economy booming - according to Forbes, the number of dollar billionaires in India has doubled since last year to 27 - there is a growing club of busy businessmen. Last year CluboneAir came into the picture and introduced a fullfledged scheme for fractional ownership. Run by Manav Singh, it started with one Cessna Citation II aircraft, and today has a fleet of eight aircraft.

'We are expanding only because we have received a good response from the market,' says Singh. By next year, his fleet will touch 30, a range including Cessna Citation XLs, Gulfstreams, a Challenger and an ATR 900. A Cessna Citation II can cost $4.5 million. At CluboneAir, for instance, the acquisition cost of a 100-hour purchase falls to $556,000, about 65 per cent of which is refundable at the end of five years. There is a monthly management cost of $10,000. This pays for all infrastructure and engineering needs. There is a direct operating cost of $1,000 per hour, which includes fuel, landing and parking charges. Singh says this is much lower when compared to the actual cost of the aircraft, or the cost of maintaining one. Plus, with approvals from defence airfields, he has access to 350 airstrips compared to the 60 that are open for public use. He has roped in six owners so far; names, which, he says, are confidential.

But Delhi's Modi family, Hero Honda's Munjals, actors Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan, if not executives from Shell, Cairn Energy, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto are regular fliers. Singh is now starting to expand his network, to places like Bhubaneshwar, Pune and Raipur to cater to power, oil and chemical companies that are setting up bases there. 'You have to go where the customer is,' he says. What Singh has, however, managed to build is a buzz around fractional ownership. There are now, in fact, three more players waiting to get in. Saija Air, Fidelity Aviation and Forum One are all preparing for their launches. With the Indian skies now open for private competition, there has been frenetic activity in passenger flight operations, with 16 existing players and a dozen more waiting to get in. The Indian middle class has taken to the sky like never before. And the rush by the rich has just begun.

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