For a while, I haven’t seen Zoom Airplanes on New Delhi tarmac. I started to wonder what has happened to the airline. Not surprisingly, the operation started to nosedive.
UDAN Fails To Take-Off
Bigger airlines such as Indigo, Jet, Spicejet and Air India have secured some good routes, and they are even making some money via UDAN scheme.
But there are 4 regional airlines, whose existence depended on these regional routes. And they are not able to pick up ticket sales.
4 regional airlines which have started their operations based on UDAN flights are:
Zoom Air; Air Deccan; Air Odisha and TruJet.
Out of these, only TruJet has managed to fly an average of 50,000 passengers per month, which means that they are able to generate decent revenues.
Finances of Zoom Air; Air Deccan and Air Odisha are nose-diving at a fast rate, as per a report by Money Control they are facing a possible shut down.
Zoom Air hasn’t flown a single passenger since July, and Air Deccan and Air Odisha are right now handling 3000 and 1000 monthly passengers, as per data by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
In fact, due to such ‘performance’, Airports Authority of India had to cancel three routes: Air Odisha on two routes (Chhattisgarh and Chennai); and Air Deccan’s one route in Maharashtra.
TruJet which is slowly expanding and feels more like charter airlines trying to go commercial. TruJet might be the one that might lease out Jet Airways ATR – 72 for their fleet and it would make sense.
