The Department of Aviation is ready to grant a licence to Thai Tiger Airways if it complies with the Aviation Act and wins approval from the Transport Ministry.
The department's director-general Wutichai Singmanee said Thai Tiger Airways had yet to file for a licence from the department.
To be eligible for a licence, an airline needs to have registered capital at least Bt200 million and half of the management must hold Thai nationality. It must own at least two aircraft and the age of each of them must not exceed 14 years.
It cannot choose to operate only main routes such as Bangkok-Chiang Mai but must also serve secondary destinations such as Udon Thani, Ubon Ratchathani, and smaller routes with not more than 50,000 passengers per year.
Thai Airways International has completed a three-year business plan (2010-13) for Thai Tiger Airways, which will use four main airports: Phuket, Krabi, Chiang Mai and Hat Yai.
It will also fly regional routes between Asean and Asia. It will lease three Airbus A320s from Tiger Holdings Singapore during the first year before increasing its fleet to five planes in the second year and 10 in the third year. The lease rate is US$252,000 (Bt7.85 million) per aircraft per month.
It will operate five international routes in the first year before rising to 13 routes in the third year, covering six countries. Domestic routes will be Bangkok to Phuket, Krabi, Hat Yai and Chiang Mai.
The budget airline targets 1.42 million passengers in the first year and total revenue of Bt2.348 billion and expenditure of Bt2.766 billion. It targets a net profit of Bt258 million in the second year. It targets 4 million passengers per year once it has 10 aircraft in operation.
A source at the Transport Ministry said the Department of Aviation would face difficulty in granting the licence to Thai Tiger Airways if THAI could not provide satisfactory details to Minister Sopon Saram.
Lately Sopon has insisted that THAI give him clear details of Thai Tiger Airways' business plan, though Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has announced that he has given full support to THAI on the matter.
THAI signed a memorandum of understanding with Tiger Airways in August to form Thai Tiger Airways, which is expected to go into operation next March.