Jet Airways, under its new owners the Jalan–Kalrock consortium, successfully concluded its last set of proving flights on Tuesday. The air operators certificate (AOC) is expected by the end of this week, sources in the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) told BusinessLine.
The final proving flight was on the Delhi–Hyderabad–Delhi route and had 31 people on board which include 31 members. Among them were two pilots, four cabin crew members, 19 employees of Jet Airways (including senior management staff) and six DGCA officials.
“In all likelihood, the AOC is expected by the end of week,” a DGCA official said.
Final step
Proving flights are among the last step that the airlines had to opt for in order to re-validate its AOC, before it went back to commercial operations. The airlines was grounded in April 2019, when its previous owners went bankrupt.
Jet Airways is currently sticking on to its plan of resuming operations in the July-September quarter. “We have successfully conducted our proving flights over the two days and we now look forward to the grant of the AOC by the DGCA,” a spokesperson of the Jalan–Kalrock consortium said in a statement.
The first set of proving flights were carried out on May 15 along the Delhi–Mumbai–Delhi route; with a diversion to Ahmedabad at the time of return. The flight was hovering over Rajasthan when the aircraft asked it to be diverted to Ahmedabad. According to DGCA officials, such diversions are a part of proving flights to gauge preparedness of the airlines in case such a situation arises.
In all, the airlines has logged in around 10 hours of flying and 5 landings as part of its proving flight operations. Jet had used a Boeing 737 (registration number VT – SXE) for the proving flights. Jet Airways, it may be mentioned, has already completed other formalities that include obtaining clearances from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).