Zoom Air (India) (Delhi International) has been grounded for the last two months as the Indian Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) suspended the carrier's operating licence due to concerns about its safety management systems, Business Standard correspondent Arindam Majumder has reported on his social media profile.
The regional carrier's financial backer Jaideep Mirchandani is also reportedly hesitant to continue pumping money into the venture, discouraged by the poor results of flights operated under the Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS or UDAN).
Zoom Air was hit by the poorly executed government's strategy to develop regional flights in India, as the state assigned routes and encouraged start-ups to enter the market, but failed to ensure enough slots were available at busy airports. Smaller airports were also often not prepared for year-round operations due to the lack of navigational aids. In addition, lengthy bureaucratic procedures have burdened start-ups which were not required to have enough launch capital.
This all led to a high rate of cancellations, poor load factors, and operational challenges which led to losses despite the waiver of airport fees and government's subsidies for 50% of the available tickets.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Zoom Air currently operates four CRJ200ERs which are all stored at Delhi International.
Meanwhile, Shaishav Shah, the owner of both Air Odisha (Bhubaneshwar) and Air Deccan (DKN, Nashik), said he was mulling adding ATR72s to the fleet of the carriers. Both of them currently operate Beech 1900D on UDAN routes across India and have also been hit by the same issues that affected Zoom Air, although so far they have not yet thrown in the towel.
