Waiting for refund by Air Pegasus

Air Pegasus Pvt. Ltd, a regional airline headquartered in Bengaluru, has been non-operational since 27 July 2016 and its licence had been suspended by DGCA on 22 November 2016. The airline had taken huge advance bookings before 27 July 2016 and the same has not been refunded to passengers even after 9 months.
29/03/17 Jitender Singh/The Times Of India

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High hopes and rough landings for India’s smaller airlines

Mumbai: Indeevar Varma, a human resources manager from Ahmedabad in the western state of Gujarat, was put off flying with Air Costa, a small regional budget Indian airline, after he says he "was bounced like a ball" during "a rough landing" when he travelled from Hyderabad to Ahmedabad several months ago.

"That was the worst landing I’ve encountered," Mr Varma recalls. Apart from that, "there was nothing unique about the airline but the planes were OK", he says.

Having avoided the carrier for some time, a few weeks ago he decided to give Air Costa another go. He booked a ticket from Ahmedabad to Hyderabad for March 7. A few days before the flight, he received a text message saying the flight had been cancelled.

It was on February 28 that Air Costa, which was founded in 2013 and is based in south India, suspended flights as it faces a cash crisis.

The sudden suspension follows a similar situation eights months ago, when Air Pegasus, a Bangalore-based regional carrier with three 66-seat aircraft, abruptly stopped flying because of financial difficulties, after operating for just over a year.

These events raise questions over the viability of regional carriers in the cut-throat aviation market in India, where a flurry of regional services in the past couple of years launched with high hopes.

Air Costa is desperately trying to raise funds from investors. The airline is owned by LEPL Group, which has interests in property and renewable energy and was founded by the entrepreneur LP Bhaskara Rao.
11/03/17 Rebecca Bundhun/The Nationa

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Air Costa stops ops; Air Pegasus unlikely to resume on Mar 1

New Delhi: Air Costa today temporarily suspended its operations, becoming the second regional airline in less than eight months to abruptly stop services after Air Pegasus.
At the same time, Air Pegasus is unlikely to resume services from tomorrow as announced in January when new investors were roped in.
Facing financial issues with the lessors, Air Costa has decided to ground its two leased aircraft, Embraer E190, which can seat over 100 passengers. The airline has only these two planes in its fleet.
Rival Air Pegasus too had to shut operations for similar reason in July 2016.
“We have taken a two-day halt in our operations because of the financial issues with the lessors. We have been trying to raise funds for the past three months and we are waiting for the same by Thursday,” Air Costa spokesperson Kavi Churasia told PTI.
Prior to suspending its flight services, Air Costa had been operating 16 flights per day to eight destinations.
“The talks with one of the investors are at a very advanced stage. This is temporary halt, starting from today.
We are trying to resolve the issue,” Churasia said.
However, he emphasised that the two planes have only been “grounded” and not taken away by the lessor.
Air Pegasus, which has been grounded since July last year, is unlikely to restart services again from tomorrow as the new investors are still carrying out their “due diligence”.
Last month, Bengaluru-based airline group Flyeasy had announced acquiring up to 74 per cent stake in Air Pegasus in a deal worth Rs 86 crore.
“I can’t comment anything now as due diligence is going on,” Flyeasy group CEO Rajesh Ebrahim said in response to a query on whether Air Pegasus would start flying again from tomorrow.
28/02/17 PTI/India.com

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