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CHENNAI: The sky over south India is likely to get crowded in coming months. If plans floated by a few new airlines take off on time, travelling time between smaller cities in the peninsula could soon reduce. Most tier-II cities here are not well connected to each other by air despite a large potential clientele, which is thereby forced to rely on roads and railways. But regional airlines are coming up in a big way to bridge the demand-supply gap and a vacuum created by the downsizing of Kingfisher Airlines.

Air Pegasus and Air Costa are gearing up to start services in a couple of months having received a no-objection from the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA). They will interconnect tier II cities and connect tier II cities with the nearest metro as well. Under licence rules, regional airlines are allowed to fly to only one metro.

However, in the south, rules have been relaxed by DGCA due to the proximity of the three metros — Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore — and regional airlines will be allowed to fly into more than one metro. "We plan to start operations to 13 destinations, including Trichy, Madurai, Coimbatore, Mangalore, Chennai, Bangalore, Goa and Kochi, by October.