Turbo Megha Airways gets AOC certificate

Mumbai: Hyderabad-based Turbo Megha Airways today received the Air Operator Certificate (AOC) from aviation regulator DGCA which will enable it to expand the UDAN flights to metros of other regions such as Mumbai.

Turbo Megha Airways, which is the holding company of regional carrier TrueJet, has been granted the AOC under the scheduled commuter operator (SCO) category, a senior official from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) said.

Under the category, air operators are allowed to operate with aircraft having a maximum All Up Weight (AUW) not exceeding 40 tons. Turbo Megha is one of the five air operators which won bids to operate on 128 routes connecting 70 airports, of which 31 are unserved under the regional connectivity scheme – Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) - where fares are capped at Rs 2,500 for one-hour flights.

Air India's regional arm Alliance Air, budget carrier SpiceJet, private air charter operators Deccan Aviation and Air Odisha are the other players which will be operating flights to unserved and underserved airports under the UDAN scheme.

According to the official, Turbo Megha, being a scheduled regional operator, was not allowed to fly to metros of other regions, "but under the SCO category they can now commence flight services to those metros as well." Last month, Trujet had said it will launch air services on three new routes of -- Hyderabad-Cuddapah, Hyderabad-Nanded and Nanded-Mumbai -- under the regional connectivity scheme 'UDAN'.

It also plans to fly to Maharashtra's Shirdi airport, which is expected to be functional soon. The airline currently operates three ATR-72 aircraft and acquired one more recently, taking its fleet size to four planes.