Bangalore: Deccan Aviation Private Limited (DAPL), the largest private air charter company in the country, will be launching its low-cost air service in August, a top official of the company said.

DAPL recently inked pact with ATR in Toulouse in France and finalised the contract to import six ATR- 320 48-seater aircrafts. The agreement was signed by managing director DAPL, captain G R Gopinath and Jean Luc Establie, director sales Asia Pacific ATR, Gopinath said.

The contract is for lease of aircrafts, training of pilots, engineers and a comprehensive global maintenance arrangement with 24-hour access to critical parts, rotables and engines to ensure the highest standards of despatch reliability to support the scheduled operations.

Four ATR airliners will be arriving in the first week of August. The company has recruited 42 pilots, 15 engineers and 15 airhostesses as crewmembers. And the team will be headed by captain Rajiv Kothiyal, who test flew the prestigious light combat aircraft (LCA). He will be the chief pilot of the company, Gopinath said.

This regional airline will be the first low-cost carrier on the lines of Ryan Air and Easy Jet in Europe and will be connecting all the regional centres in South, he said.

In the first phase, the following cities will be connected to large metros. The routes will be: Bangalore- Hubli-Mumbai, Bangalore-Belgaum-Mumbai, Mysore-Mumbai, Hyderabad-Vijayawada, Hyderabad- Rajamundry, Gopinath said.

In the second phase when the fleet's strength rises to six in October, all regional centres like Tirupathi, Vishakhapatnam, Rajamundry-Chennai, Tuticorin, Maduri, Kozhikode, Coimbatore and Hampi will be connected to ensure that passengers are able to have return flights from large metros everyday, he said.

In the wake of reforms set in motion by the government, large-scale investments that have come into the region and the need to provide connectivity for tourism, this low-cost regional airline is going to give fillip to the economic development both in industry and tourism, Gopinath added.

This in turn will boost the aviation industry by the increasing the passenger load factor, he said.

"Aviation industry, which until now had not witnessed this kind of explosion, is now ready to grow leaps and bounds as in the West if aviation is targeted for the masses," he said.

The main objective of this regional air is to offer low-cost point-to-point frequent connectivity to increase travel, Gopinath said.

PTI