Regional Carrier TruJet Suspends All Flights Amid Concerns Over Shut Down: Here's Why
Hyderabad-based regional carrier TruJet, earlier this week said that it has suspended all its flights citing various administrative and technical reasons.
Though the company has denied rumors of ceasing operations and promised to resume flights soon, many are not convinced if the struggling regional carrier can ever make it back to the skies again.
"TruJet is in the final stage of discussion with a potential investor who is funding $25 million within the next few days. The investor would like to bring his own panel of management and in the same process Mr. Yoga has been appointed as CFO w.e.f 14th Feb 2022," the company said in the statement.
"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 1st March 2022. Till such time Mr. Umesh, MD will be the acting CEO for the company," the statement added.
History
Founded in 2013, by Telugu actor Ram Charan and Vankayalapati Umesh as promoters, TruJet began operating as a regional carrier from July 2015.
It has a fleet of seven ATR-72 aircraft and had focused on tier-2 and tier-3 airports in nine states including Andhra, Telangana, Goa, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.
The airline was approved to operate 450 flights per week, but it had reduced to operating just one aircraft before it was also halted this week.
In December it was reported that aircraft leasing company Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) has applied to deregister two ATR72-600 leased to TruJet for non-payment of dues.
Heavy financial losses
Like most airlines in India, TruJet was also operating under heavy financial losses.?
It had incurred an operating loss of Rs 143 crores for the 2021 financial year, around Rs 10.1 and Rs 17.56 crores in 2020 and 2019 respectively.
TruJet was one of the only four regional airlines in India, with the others being Alliance Air, FlyBig, and Star Air.
In 2020 Air Deccan, another regional airline had ceased operations due to financial troubles and the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was founded by Captain Gopinath, who was also the founder of Simplifly Deccan.
The Indian aviation industry has had a long history of airlines bleeding cash to death.
Other recent examples include Jet Airways which was grounded in April 2019 and Kingfisher Airlines which ceased operations in 2012, both full-service carriers.
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