First Photo of an Air Costa Aircraft with an Indian Registration

Plenty of blurry phone pictures of Air Costa aircraft had been passed around in India by October 2013. This post shared the first good, publicly available photograph of an Air Costa Embraer 170 wearing Indian markings.

The shot

The aircraft was VT-LSR. It was photographed by Karthik Kumar, a skilled teenage spotter, who got up early on 18 October 2013 and went out to Bangalore International Airport (ICAO code VOBL) to find a good position. He caught the aircraft arriving from Vijayawada as Air Costa flight 601 (callsign LB 601). At the time of posting the photo had been accepted by Airport-Data.net, with acceptances by JetPhotos.net and Airliners.net still pending.

The aircraft

VT-LSR is an Embraer EMB 170AR with manufacturer serial number 278. Before coming to India it flew for Gulf Air as A9C-MA. When photographed it was about three years and seven months old.

The aircraft was leased from ECC Leasing. ECC Leasing Company Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Embraer, set up on 18 September 2002 to manage and remarket Embraer's pre-owned aircraft.

A new chapter for regional flying

The post presented the E170 in Air Costa's colours as the face of a regional airline that was opening a new chapter in Indian regional aviation. Readers were invited to click the image to see it at its full 1,200 pixel width, and the author signed off wishing everyone a pleasant Sunday.