Regional airline TruJet has suspended all flight operations. The airline has been a forefront player in the government’s regional connectivity scheme of UDAN.

"The operations are temporarily hampered because of various administrative and technical reasons and rest be assured that TruJet will resume its operations at short notice," the airline said in a statement.

This is the first airline which has suspended flights in India since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

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The airline has been facing a financial crisis since 2020 and was also in discussions with Interups fund from the US for a potential investment in 2021. The airline today said that it is days away from sealing a funding deal with a potential investor for $25 million.

"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.

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The regional airline, with a fleet of seven aircraft, had plans to expand its network across the country. CNBC-TV18 had interviewed the then CEO of the airline Col (Retd) LSN Murty in a special series on UDAN in July 2021.

"We started our operations with three aircraft and now we are with a fleet of seven aircraft. And with seven aircraft a day, we do about 60 flights. Presently we are at a seven aircraft fleet and by December (2021), we intend to add two more aircraft and next year we plan to add up to 5-6 aircraft. In the next 2-3 years, we would like to have a fleet size of 20 aircraft. We also would like to go pan India and for that, we have already submitted our application to the ministry of civil aviation and is under process," Murty had told CNBC-TV18 in July 2021.

The Hyderabad-based airline, which operates to tier-2 and tier-3, had also talked about the challenges faced by regional carriers with limited infrastructure at the place across tier-2 and tier-3 airports.

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"We are operating to Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities. These are single flight operations… In a day you just do one flight operation and to establish this station we need to put in a lot of efforts, investments and other things. Just by operating one flight, it is not becoming viable or economical to us. The second thing is the UDAN routes… most of them are VFR (visual flight rules) airfields, we do not have the facility for night-landing and other things. This is a big challenge for us to develop our network," Murty had said in July 2021.

(Edited by : Jomy Jos Pullokaran)

First Published:Feb 16, 2022 6:42 PM IST