How to do low-cost, long-haul right

•  blog / non-stop flights
•  1st March 2021
•  (Nino) Navdip Singh Judge

Chief Executive Officer and Founder of flypop, Navdip Singh Judge (Nino), brings passion, leadership and management experience to the flypop team.

Instrumental in bringing the Lotus brand back to F1 in 2009 where he worked with Tony Fernandes, Group CEO of Air Asia, Nino was a former British Army Officer and Aeronautical Engineer with a career in the City of London before taking on flypop full time in 2017.

Here he outlines 10 reasons why he believes flypop, a low-cost, long-haul airline for the South Asia market, will become a flying success.

1. Expertise

We have an experienced management team with aviation sector experience, especially in South Asia.

2. Proven market

We are well positioned to take advantage of the proven and growing demand for non-stop air travel from the UK (and North America) to Tier 2 cities in South Asia. Currently these are under-served routes with around 3 million passengers each year flying directly or indirectly between the UK and India. flypop is focused on serving a specific diaspora and the visiting friends and relatives market.

3. Growing Indian prosperity

Passenger growth will be driven by the aspirations of India’s increasingly prosperous middle class. There are now over 600 million middle class South Asians – larger than the entire population of Europe or North America - and flypop hopes to inspire this segment to fly to Europe.

4. Untapped tourist potential

Large parts of Asia now attract a lot of tourists – Thailand has 30 million a year, Singapore has 15 million and Malaysia now has 13 million tourists. However, India has only 3 million tourists per annum compared to the VFR (Visiting Friends and Relatives) segment which is 10 million per year, including 2 million Bangladeshi.

5. Value for money flying

We will offer an unbeatable value for money service for customers, particularly those in the VFR segments. Our ticket pricing model will be fair, transparent and innovative.

6. Low cost business model

flypop promises the lowest average fares in the markets we serve. This is thanks in part to high load factors and the fact that our startup will utilise more affordable mature A330-300 aircraft leases like IAG’s LCLH Carrier LEVEL and AirAsia’s LCLH Carrier AirAsiaX.

7. Greater efficiencies

flypop will never fly less than 6 hours or more than 10 hours from the UK so our aircraft will return home every 24 hours. This helps to simplify scheduling and minimise maintenance costs.

8. Profitable, low-risk for investors

Unhindered by the financial commitments of legacy carriers, and because we are planning a phased roll-out starting with two high-demand destinations in India (Amritsar and Ahmedabad), we provide a de-risked business model. Feed agreements with short haul low cost carriers in the UK and India makes flypop more accessible from Europe and onto South East Asia.

9. Highly qualified crew members

Cabin crew will be made up of and recruited from relevant South Asian communities with additional senior staff recruited in the UK. Trained by flypop, our quality crew members will speak multiple regional languages on board.

10. Convenient flight times

Compared to other airlines, flypop will offer convenient flight times. Furthermore, because we will fly direct to second cities, we will save passengers between 4 to 6 hours on average when compared to other providers’ connecting flights

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