Mehair (Mumbai International) is to partner Ventura AirConnect (Ahmedabad) in offering domestic flights within the province of Gujarat after its own services struggled to gain traction.
Having won a tender issued by the Gujarat State Aviation Infrastructure Co. Ltd to offer the flights late last year, the Times of India says Mehair has struggled to make its flights from Ahmedabad to Porbandar, Bhuj, and Jamnagar work clocking just 85 hours of flying time in the last three months and ferrying just 60 passengers in total.
Though the Gujarati state government subsidizes the flights to the tune of 20%, the incentive is contingent on Mehair performing at least 100 hours of flying time per month.
As it stands, the Mumbai-based carrier has now chosen to partner local Gujarati operator, Ventura AirConnect, in a bid to revitalize its operations there.
"We are in talks with MehAir for the joint venture. We can fly on half of the routes, while MehAir on the rest," Captain Kartikey Garasia, the CEO of Ventura AirConnect's parent, DAL (Diamond Aeronautics Ltd), said. "This way, it will ease the burden on the company to procure more aircraft for the services in Gujarat as we are already flying from Surat to Bhavnagar and Rajkot."
Since its take over by DAL late last year, Ventura AirConnect has gone on to successfully operate its own local flights using a fleet of Cessna (single turboprop) 208B Grand Caravans to serve Bhavnagar and Rajkot from Surat.
