Air Kerala (2012) (Kochi International) is a new start-up backed by private investors from the United Arab Emirates. According to one of the investors, Abu Dhabi based EMKE Group, it mainly plans to concentrate on labour traffic between Kerala and the Gulf countries. It remains unclear how it aims to do that given Indian carriers need to have operated for at least five years on domestic routes and have a fleet of 20 aircraft before they are allowed to operate on still highly regulated international routes.