Grounded Indian carrier MDLR Airlines plans to resume operations later this month.
MDLR has been grounded since 8 October but Harsh Vardhan, whose company Starair Consulting is a consultant to the airline, says MDLR is aiming to resume in the third week of December.
It will use its BAe Avro RJ70 aircraft, two of which are in India and one is in Romania, he says. The third aircraft is returning to India in a week to 10 days, he adds.
MDLR has been grounded "because of a technical snag and cash flow-limitations", says Vardhan.
He declines to say what the technical issue was.
As for the cash-flow problem, Vardhan says the owners had already pumped nearly $20 million into the business, so it took time to make arrangements for the owners to pump more money in. But now the funding issue has been settled, he says.
MDLR is now recruiting for a CEO to replace the airline's chief operating officer, Koustav Dhar, who left to help India's Jagson Airlines launch scheduled services using BAe RJ85s, says Vardhan.
He says MDLR plans to continue operating RJ70s and will continue to focus on northern India but on regional routes where it faces less competition.
Jagson is planning to launch scheduled services on 2 February on some of the same routes MDLR has been serving.
Vardhan says "the whole airline industry in India has been suffering" but there are still opportunities for regional aviation in the country.
Starair Consulting is helping another three regional start-ups in the country, says Vardhan, who declines to name the start-ups. But he says one plans to operate Bombardier CRJ200s, another wants to operate helicopters and 30-seat turboprops and the third also wants to operate 30-seat turboprops.
The turboprops in contention are the Saab 340 and the Bombardier equivalent, he confirms.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
