Regional airline TruJet says talks on with investor after grounding flights

TruJet says it is in final stage of discussion with a potential investor who is funding $25 mn within next few days

Regional airline TruJet said it is in talks with an investor and will restart operations at a short notice after temporarily suspending flights on Wednesday.

The airline was approved to operate 450 flights per week in the ongoing winter schedule but its operations dwindled over the last few weeks due to delays in funding. It was operating with a single ATR-72 aircraft before grounding operations.

In a statement, the airline said the operations have been temporarily hampered because of various administrative and technical reasons and will resume operations at short notice. A company source said it hopes to restart flights by Friday using the single aircraft. Three other ATR-72 planes are awaiting maintenance, the source added.

"TruJet is in final stage of discussion with a potential investor who is funding $ 25 million within next few days. The investor would like to bring his own panel of management. The Investor is also in the process of finalising a new CEO who is well versed and experienced in aviation and will be totally taking charge as CEO on March 1. Till such time, V Umesh, the managing director, will be the acting CEO for the company," it said.