The airline industry in India is looking forward to a new beginning with a new flying model by Prince Air. The carrier is soon going to be India’s first subscription based airline. Yes, you read that right. By this we mean that you can fly multiple times for a monthly subscription. Kind of like subscribing to an OTT platform.
Prince Air, India’s first-ever subscription-based airline is here. Founded by Sanket Raj Singh, this New Delhi-based startup offers unlimited travel on its private jets in a subscription model. In simple terms, you need to pay a monthly subscription as you’d do for a Netflix or Amazon Prime account, and you can enjoy unlimited travel on private jets. Prince Air was designed to offer exclusive experiences in an inclusive manner. Patrons can enjoy private jet services for a fraction of their cost. So, you can expect faster, more affordable and efficient services for everyone. With less time spent in airports, a round trip flight from Delhi to Mumbai and back would save you at least 3 hours by Prince Air.
Founded on the concept that exclusive experiences can be inclusive, Prince Air is designed to offer its services to patrons for a fraction of the usual cost – making its member travel affordable and accessible to everyone. Its service is also faster and more efficient, by cutting down the time spent at airports. That means a round trip flight from Delhi to Mumbai and back, would save at least 3 hours via Prince Air.
Prince Air cuts the cost by up to 50% of the usual commercial airline cost for flying business class in India- and up to 95% of what charter operators charge to fly on a private jet.
According to Singh, the airline wants to begin operations when it has 10000 to 12000 members across Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru. According to Singh, membership costs INR 54500 per month. This means that you can fly across Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru as many times as you want for INR 54500. As of now the airline covers New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, and later it will connect to cities such as Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Hyderabad, Chennai, Pune, and Amritsar.
What is a subscription-based airline?
Just like Netflix, where you pay in advance and watch unlimited movies, here too a member will need to pay a monthly subscription fees and can then fly. However, this is facility is available exclusively to the members. For a fixed monthly fee, members can fly on Prince Air’s fleet of private aircraft as often as they can book. As Singh says, “This is private flying for the busy business professional – without the hassles of commercial aviation, major airlines, or owning your own plane.”
Once onboard, how often can a member fly?
Each member would be getting 5 subscriptions/seats/tickets each month and would be able to book four seats at a given time. As soon as a member exhausts two boarding passes, he/she can then book two more flights, maintaining the four seats at a time model. As Singh explains, “It’s like a buffet, you will only consume as much as you want to. So, at times there will be members who would just fly2-4 times a month, whereas others would be flying more than eight times based on the availability of seats on our app. It just takes 30 seconds to make a reservation for a member.”
