As Air Costa Turns 2, It Bids Adieu to Its Embraer E170s

Air Costa, India's first regional jet airline, turned two on 15 October 2015. The airline was the second in India, after the now defunct Paramount Airways, to fly the Embraer E170. It was now ending the lease on those aircraft, which likely made Air Costa the last Indian operator of a 70 to 80 seat regional jet.

The E170s

The two E170s, VT-LSR and VT-LNR, were the airline's first two aircraft, leased from Embraer's ECC Leasing. They had earlier flown for Gulf Air, which fitted them with 67 seats: 7 business and 60 economy. The type can hold up to 78 seats in a single class.

The airline had cancelled up to four flights because one of the two E170s, VT-LSR, was due back to its lessor in November. Of the 32 daily flights it used to fly to 9 destinations, it was then flying 25 to 26. That was expected to fall to around 15 or 16 flights a day within 10 days. Once two new Embraer E190s arrived, the airline would resume the former E170 flights from 1 December 2015.

Because of this, Air Costa was not selling or operating certain E170 sectors between 25 October and 30 November, according to its website, until the replacement E190 took them over from 1 December. Sales for those sectors were open for travel from 1 December onward.

The E170 sectors flown by the other aircraft were not on sale at all, for an indefinite period, according to the website:

• Vijayawada to Hyderabad and back
• Vijayawada to Chennai and back
• Vijayawada to Vishakapatnam and back
• Chennai to Hyderabad and back (daily)

Frequencies on routes such as Bengaluru to Vijayawada had halved.

The E190s stay

Air Costa's two other aircraft, Embraer E190s VT-LBR and VT-LVR leased from GECAS, were staying in the fleet. One of them was due for scheduled maintenance in mid November. The E190 was a money maker for the airline, and Air Costa was using the asset to its strength. The two E170s would be replaced by two E190s within three months.

Studies by The Flying Engineer suggested that small regional jets of under 100 seats had limited relevance in the Indian market at the time. A good way to capture the market was to complement the 180 seat Airbus A320 and Boeing 737 with an aircraft of about 50 to 60 percent of that capacity. That made the Embraer E190, with a maximum of 114 seats, an ideal aircraft for routes with too little demand for a 180 seater.

Going pan India

Air Costa would be able to link Tier II and Tier III cities across the country with any Tier I city once its air operator permit changed from a scheduled southern regional airline permit to a scheduled pan India permit. That change was expected soon. The network would still focus on the regional segment, but across the whole country.

With the airline being demerged from other projects of the parent company, Air Costa was ready to bring in outside investors. It planned to add four aircraft a year from 2016. By 2018 it aimed for at least 12 aircraft and 18 stations.

Air Costa then served 9 destinations. A major network change was expected along with the fleet change. Bhubaneswar, Pune, Guwahati, Indore, Patna and Bhopal were expected to join the network when the fleet reached 8 aircraft.