East West Plans Fresh Take-Off In Jan

East West Airlines (EWA) plans to revive its operations by January and is negotiating with foreign partners for taking on lease two Boeing 737-400s to start with.

We have worked out a revival plan and hope to operate with five such aircraft by March, a spokesman of the airline said here yesterday.

The airline had already renewed the no objection certificate from the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) a few months ago for import of aircraft, but permission would be given after the necessary manpower to operate the aircraft were put in place, a DGCA official said.

The spokesman said plans are to keep minimum requirement of labour as we have learnt from our past mistakes and a clear picture will emerge in the next 15 days.

 

He said the airline, which had more than 2,500 employees on its rolls, has been left with only 40 to 50 employees now. We have submitted a detailed revival policy to the civil aviation ministry, he added.

He said East West had a financial liability of Rs 150 crore but it had been brought down and the general liabilities were now less than Rs 22 crore.

A financial package was also being put in place, he added.

East West, the first private airline to take off in early 1992, closed down a few months after the gunning down of its managing director Thakiy-udeen A Wahid on November 13, 1995.

In a statement yesterday, East West chairman, A W Nasir, said the assassins of Wahid were yet to be arrested

The recent Supreme Court verdict releasing Sabu Chakko, former regional manager of East West in Delhi, of the charge under Tada, has led us to renew our faith in the judiciary and law-enforcing authorities to look forward to their assistance in establishing the facts and punishing the assassins, he said.

Nasir said efforts were on to revive business operations and the Supreme Court verdict provided further stimulus to our plans for the future.