Airlines flying 20 planes to Udaipur for Ambani wedding

Also, more than 200 charter flights to crowd the airport this week

Ma ha ran a Pr a tap Airport at Udaipurw ill see its busiest period this week as more than 200 charter planes will fly into the city ferrying guests for the wedding of Is ha Am ba ni and An and Pi ram al.

Besides private charters, the Am ba ni family has booked almost 20 aircraft of commercial airlines for the guests. While Tata Singapore Airlines joint venture Vista ra is flying at least ten one way charters from Delhi and Mumbai to Udaipur, Spice Jet, Jet Airways, and Air Asia together will be operating 10 more flights to the city. Families of Asia' s rich est man Muke sh Am ban ian dP ira mal Group head A jay Pi ram al are holding the pre-wedding bash of their son and daughter a t Udaip ur.

“It' s not usual that airlines are operating charter flights during the peak winter season. An airline would only accept charter when they are very lucrative. Otherwise, they decline. The Ambanisare paying good money for each flight ," said an executive of one of the carriers. All the airlines refused to comment on the bookings.

Besides the scheduled carriers, the Reliance group is using its own planes to ferry guests ." Reliance has its own aviation business, plus many of the guests flying to the wedding will be flying by their own personal charter," said an industry source. The Reliance group has around 11 fixed wing aircraft and 3 helicopter sin its fleet.

Due to the high movement of planes, the Udaip ur airport authorities have increased its day light watch hours to 4 PM from regular 5:30 AM to 1:45 PM. However, the tiny airport does not have enough infrastructure for parking and, hence, the planes have to fly back to Jaipur and Ahmed a bad for night parking.

"Usually the highest movement this airport handles is usually 20 per day. This is a significant rise in numbers, but we are prepared as mostly the guests will arrive in the morning hours," said an official of Udaipu rairport. Executives of charter plane companies say that while wedding season is one reason for the increase in charter movements, the trend has reduced from previous years. "The trend of big-fat Indian weddings has come down drastically, impacting the charter business during the wedding season. The Ambani wedding is an exception but such high movement of charters are now unusual for weddings," said Sachit Wadhwa, of Baron Luxury and Lifestyles, an aggregator of private jets.

The ongoing election season in Rajsthan, theysaid, is one more reason for the rise in charter movements ." Charter rates, especially for twin-engine choppers, which are indemand from top minister sand high ranking politicians, have soared, too. That is because VIPs are not allowed under the Directorate General of Civil A via ti on (DGCA) norms to travel in single-engine choppers ," said an executive of a Delhi-based charter company.

Planning for election flying begins six to seven months before a campaign begins. For charters, the election season is of 45-60 days. During this period, flying is at it speak for around 30 days. During the planning stage, charter brokers buy or commit block hours per aircraft from chartered plane companies, in lieu of an advance sum. Forinstance, a broker could buy a committed flying of 90 hours per aircraft for 30 days and sell it to a political party, based on its requirements. According to industry sources, there are around 100-150 general aviation (non-scheduled and charter movements) daily in India and over half of them from Mumbai and Delhi.

Corporate, medical and leisure travel are main growth contributors while weddingcharters form a very small segment in the charter business. The industry, however, has been seeing as low growth of 2-3percent increase in movements largely due to infrastructure constraints, regulatory and taxation issues. Experts are hopeful thatfourth runway in Delhi will increase traffic handling and help in growth of charters.