Liquor baron Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines took-off this morning, with its first flight headed from India's commercial capital Mumbai to New Delhi at the first light of dawn. The private carrier had received its operations permit from the civil aviation ministry on Wednesday, recognising it as a scheduled carrier, which enabled it to launch flights from today.

Besides Mumbai-Delhi operations, the airlines will operate three flights a week between Mumbai and Bangalore and three more between Delhi and Bangalore.

However, the airline is not a no-frills carrier, even though Mallya had said that the airline would be hailed for its quality and reliability and "unparalleled in-flight experience"(See: Low cost, frills chic).

The airline's aircraft have an all economy configuration and provide prices lower than other competing airlines.

Kingfisher had taken the delivery of the first of its four A-320 aircraft from Airbus Industrie on lease from Airbus' assembly line in Toulouse, France. This is the first instance ever of a private Indian carrier taking delivery of a brand new aircraft to commence commercial operations.

The Airlines has also placed firm orders for 10 airbus A-320s, in addition to a purchase option of 20 more aircraft. The airline has also ordered three A319s, with deliveries expected to begin in September and December.

With the planned deliveries, the new private carrier plans to have a fleet of 12 aircraft by January next year.

Though he must have been disappointed, about not being able to launch kingfisher's maiden flight on May 7, 2005, the birthday of his 18-year old son, Siddharth, Mallya is gung-ho about his airline and expects it to be the largest in India both in capacity and market share by 2010.

"Having invested in the best-in-class fleet of aircraft, we are committed to achieving our ambition of making Kingfisher Airlines, India's largest private airline both in capacity and market share by 2010," Mallya said.

"We expect Kingfisher Airlines to be profitable in the very first year of operations, given its strategic approach to control costs, deployment of technology and outsourcing," he said.

The airline has also entered into a breakthrough agreement with Indian Airlines, making it the first public-private- partnership in the sector. Under this partnership, IA would provide all ground handling services at its terminals in Mumbai and Delhi. This will allow Kingfisher Airlines to efficiently manage investments and overhead costs.

The partnership encompasses a host of areas like mutual assistance on account of cockpit commonality and over a period of time will expand to cover engineering and schedule coordination. It ensures that Indian Airlines makes incremental returns on its existing infrastructure.

The fleet will feature another first to its credit among private carriers - the advanced 'airborne communications addressing and reporting system'(ACCARS) that will continuously monitor and "watch over" every aircraft, even while it is in flight. This system, combined with centralised flight dispatch, will enable better management all round.

Kingfisher Airlines is a wholly-owned subsidiary of United Breweries Holdings Ltd, The UB Group's investments holding company. The Airline has been allocated the IATA airline code of 'IT'. The UB Group is one of India's largest conglomerates with a turnover of $2 billion and is the largest Indian manufacturer of beverage alcohol, beer and liquor.