Indian skies may soon see a new entrant in an extremely competitive market. The new airline called Fly91 will be based in Goa and will operate a fleet of leased 70-seater ATR 72-600 turboprop jets. The company is in the advanced stages of discussions with various lessors.
The airline will be promoted by aviation veteran Manoj Chacko, the executive vice-president of Kingfisher Airlines and chief operating officer and CEO of business travel, SOTC, and Harsha Raghavan, former India head of Prem Watsa’s Fairfax Financial Holdings. Raghavan was also the founding managing director and former CEO of Fairbridge Capital, a wholly owned India investment subsidiary of Fairfax Financial Holdings.
Raghavan will fund the airline through his investment firm Convergent Finance for the initial investment of INR 2000 million. Last week the promoter company, Just UDO applied for initial no-objection certificate (NOC).
The airline aims to start operations in September 2023 with two aircraft, and expand its fleet up to six in the first year of operations and 32 planes in five years.