Air Costa applies for pan-India flying permit

Regional carrier Air Costa has moved the aviation regulator DGCA for securing a pan-India flying permit, which would allow it expand operations to airports across the country.
The Vijayawada-headquartered airline had been granted the mandatory "No-objection certificate" by the Civil Aviation Ministry late last year.
The DGCA has received Air Costa's application for national permit last month, which is being processed for further action, a DGCA official said today.
Under the existing rules, a regional airline connects smaller destinations to the major metro of that region. It does not operate outside the region and does not connect to more than one metro.

The country has been divided into north, east, west, south and northeast regions for this purpose.
The Directorate will examine in detail documents submitted with the application before taking any decision in this regard, the official said without giving any timeline for grant of national air operator permit to the regional carrier.

The LEPL group promoted Air Costa currently operates 32 daily services to nine domestic destinations with a fleet of four planes, of which one is out of operations for replacement with a higher-seating capacity plane.
Of the four planes in its fleet, three are 110-seater Embaraer E-190 while the fourth one is a 67-seater E-170.

The airline had last month said it was aiming to have an all E190 fleet by May.
It also plans to induct five more E-190s to support its national flying aspirations and take the total fleet size to nine by March next year.