Profile Taj Air is an associate company of The Indian Hotels Company. Registered with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, India, as a non-scheduled operator, it is the only Indian air charter company with a state-of-the-art hangar and an exclusive passenger lounge at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Mumbai, India.
In 2005-06, Taj Air flew more than a million nautical miles. Its passengers have included industry captains, global CEO's, dignitaries and celebrities.
Taj Air fleet Taj Air has a fleet of Falcon 2000 aircraft positioned in Mumbai, India. The Falcon 2000 is a wide body, twin-engine business jet manufactured by Dassault Aviation. Just seven years old, Taj Air flies India's youngest fleet of aircraft.
Our fleet has a no-accident history. The fleet periodically flies to the manufacturer's facility at Dassault Falcon Service, Paris, for all major checks. The aircraft engines are enrolled in the MSP Gold Program, a maintenance service programme of Honeywell, the engine manufacturer. Our fleet meets rigorous norms and standards specified by Dassault and local regulatory authorities.
Network Taj Air flies to any destination in India and overseas within a radius of five and a half flying hours. The aircraft flies longer distances with refueling stops. Taj Air is the only operator in India with the experience of doing international sectors a far-flung as London and Bali.
In India, Taj Air covers 114 destinations. With as little as four hours' notice, Taj Air flies to 11 destinations in India viz. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Hyderabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kolkata, Mumbai and Thiruvananthapuram. For other destinations in India and overseas, departure is subject to airport formalities and landing clearances.
Services Taj Air's fleet promises its customers more than twice the space than any executive jet available for air charter in India. Originally designed for 16 passengers, the Falcon 2000 aircraft has been customised to seat only eight passengers.
For in-flight entertainment, passengers can watch a movie on their individual LCD screens or listen to music on hi-fidelity head sets. Other facilities include a satellite phone and a facsimile.
The company also offers passengers a choices of four international cuisine options, with special vegetarian, religious and child and infant meals. For refreshments, there's a choice of non-alcoholic beverages and gourmet coffees. Taj Air personally supervises its passengers' security, customs and immigration clearances and also runs rent-a-car services (at Taj Hotel destinations).
Chartering makes a lot of sense if you want to move a group of people around the country in a fixed, time constratined iten where it might not be possible to depend on commercial airlines either because of timings or simply because the city has no commercial service (Hospet/Hampi, Tiruchipalli, Bhuntar etc). The biggest users fo rthis service will be corporates and tour operators bringing in firangs...
The problem is cost. I recently had arrange for a group of my foreign clients to travel around Northerin India and chartering a Dornier cost my company a cool 52K per hour plus extra for everything: catering, ground waiting etc!! I think a Falcon would be even more!! Obscenely expensive!!
In Houston where you can charter practically any size plane, its common for a lot of families to plan joint trips, here is an estimate of the costs involved :-
Falcon - To & Fro Cancun - $2000 all paid except for mehican entry charges of $430. Cost per head = $500 (almost the same as a discount airline).
G-V - To & Fro Miami - $12000 all paid up. Cost per head $1500 (almost the same as flying biz class within the country).
12 of us are getting together to charter a plane and head out to Miri for a golfing weekend, the guy's whos doing this all for us has asked me to pay up S$3000 for the whole trip.
Unless Indian operators realize this, they are only going to end up catering to firangis who get paid for by their companies to fly around in these jets.
I can tell you that GE for example flies around 20 people everyday between DEL & HYD, now imagine if they could rent a jet ... They would save on time and costs involved.
In Houston where you can charter practically any size plane, its common for a lot of families to plan joint trips, here is an estimate of the costs involved :-
Falcon - To & Fro Cancun - $2000 all paid except for mehican entry charges of $430. Cost per head = $500 (almost the same as a discount airline).
G-V - To & Fro Miami - $12000 all paid up. Cost per head $1500 (almost the same as flying biz class within the country).
12 of us are getting together to charter a plane and head out to Miri for a golfing weekend, the guy's whos doing this all for us has asked me to pay up S$3000 for the whole trip.
Unless Indian operators realize this, they are only going to end up catering to firangis who get paid for by their companies to fly around in these jets.
I can tell you that GE for example flies around 20 people everyday between DEL & HYD, now imagine if they could rent a jet ... They would save on time and costs involved.
Just my $0.02.
Your statistics may set the aviators here on a thinking pattern