Pioneers in the sky who crashlanded too soon

On November 13, 1995, around 9.30 pm, three men allegedly stopped a car carrying East-West Airlines’ owner Thakiyudeen Abdul Wahid, broke its windshield and sprayed bullets inside the vehicle killing the occupant instantly. Wahid was on his way to his house from his office in Bandra, Mumbai, when he was shot dead.

In January last year, over 25 years later, the Mumbai Police arrested fugitive gangster Ejaz Lakdawala which they believe will lead to solving the mystery behind the killing of Wahid.

East-West Airlines was started by the Wahid family, hailing from Varkala in Kerala, in early 1992.

It was among the first few private airlines in the country to launch its operations under the government’s open skies policy unveiled in the early nineties. The airline had leased the Boeing 737-200 and Fokker 27 aircrafts. When Indian Airlines pilots went on strike in 1992, crippling the operations of the State-run airlines, East-West Airlines came to the rescue of the passengers.

The then civil aviation minister, Madhav Rao Scindia had asked the airline to operate more aircrafts because of the strike. The airline then took on four more Boeing 737s.

By 1994, the government granted scheduled domestic airline status to nine private air charter operators, including East-West Airlines.

Inevitable demise

Following the murder of Wahid, the airline’s Managing Director, the airline found it challenging to raise funds to continue its operations. The airline owed around $3 million to PLM Equipment, from which it had leased three Boeings. The leasing company initially appealed to the aviation regulator, DGCA, to deregister the aircraft and later filed a case against the airline with the Delhi High Court, which ordered the airline to either return the money or the aircraft.

Four years after its launch, the DGCA allowed the airline to cease flying on trunk routes, as it didn’t have enough aircrafts to fly to these destinations. In August, East-West Airlines finally shut down its operations, thus marking the end of the airline. A few of the aircrafts were returned to the lessors, while the rest were auctioned.

Sourced from various reports