Trujet to add seven aircraft, expand services to West and North India

The regional carrier has sought an approval from aviation ministry for expansion; plans to reach Pune and Visakhapatnam

Regional airline Trujet plans to add seven ATR aircraft to its fleet and is looking to expand its services to North and West India.

The airline began operations with a Hyderabad-Tirupati flight last July and flies to eight destinations now.  It holds a regional operations permit.

“We have three ATR-72 planes now and will add two more aircraft by May,” said V Umesh, chairperson, Trujet. It will add services from Hyderabad to Pune and Visakhapatnam.

“We plan to have ten aircraft by 2016-end and have sought approval from the civil aviation ministry to start services from West and North India. We have load factors of 85% and very low cancellation rate,” he added. 

The airline is also in talks with Andhra Pradesh government to roll out flights to the unconnected town of Kadapa with viability gap funding model.

Trujet is second regional airline seeking government nod to expand its footprint outside South India.

Air Costa is awaiting permit from Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to launch pan-India operations. “We will return to lessors two 67-seater E-170 jets and induct three 110-seater E-190 jets by March.  All our inductions next year will be of the E-190 variant. This will increase our seat capacity. We plan to start services to Delhi and Bhubaneswar from summer schedule once we receive national permit,” Vivek Choudhary, deputy chief executive officer, Air Costa said last month.