Manoj Chacko’s Fly 91 gets govt NOC; may start flying this October

NEW DELHI: India will soon get a new airline with the aviation ministry on Wednesday issuing a no-objection certificate to “Fly 91” which is being launched by Manoj Chacko, a veteran of travel industry.
Using turboprop ATR 72-600, the Panjim-based airline plans to start flying in this October-December quarter once it gets the DGCA licence and hopes to have six planes in its fleet by the end of year one. Later it will induct 6-7 ATRs annually over the next five years to have about 40 planes by the end of that period.
“We are aiming at an October launch, subject to getting all the required clearances. Comfortable journey on ATRs is between 45 to 90 minutes which means we are looking at connecting Goa (Mopa being looked at closely unless Dabolim can come up with a commercially attractive offer) to cities that cannot accommodate a bigger plane and/or where the demand is not adequate to justify deploying bigger plane. These include Kolhapur, Sholapur, Nasik, Hubli and Mysore,” Chacko, who has worked with airlines like Emirates and Kingfisher and several travel companies for over 25 years now, told TOI.
The clue to whether Fly 91 will be a full service or budget airline perhaps lies in the name of its holding company — Justudo Aviation Pvt Ltd.
“Our cost structure will be low cost and we will have a single type fleet. We will not be a luxury but a good value product leveraging majorly on digitisation. Our flights will have buy on board (for meals, and beverages),” Chacko said.
The main anchor investor in Fly 91 is Convergent Finance, which was launched by former Fairfax India CEO Harsha Raghavan.
“Then there are other investors too. We will begin operations as a well capitalised company from Day One,” he said.
After the ministry NOC, the airline now requires among other things like security clearance for its directors and finally a DGCA licence to begin operations.
This process usually takes about 3-4 months. An early grant of the required permissions will see India get a new airline this coming festive season.