Vayudoot was a regional airline in India established on 20 January 1981 as a joint-venture between the two state-owned carriers, Indian Airlines and Air India.
| ||||
| Founded | 20 January 1981 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ceased operations | 1 April 1997 | |||
| Fleet size | 21 passenger aircraft 16 agricultural aircraft | |||
| Destinations | Northeastern India | |||
| Parent company | Indian Airlines Air India | |||
| Headquarters | Safdarjung Airport, New Delhi | |||
The airline was headquartered at New Delhi's Safdarjung Airport.
The airline was originally conceived to serve the Northeastern region of India where the surface transport facilities were inadequate and surface routes were circuitous.
The regional hub for the Northeast Region was Calcutta (Kolkata) and the airline built up operations to close to 30 destinations in this challenging area.
Many of the airfields saw the resumption civil flights and fixed wing aircraft after a gap of many decades.
The airline consistently lost money since its formation.The Government, struggling to find a solution to Vayudoot's continuing financial problems, considered closure and privatisation as options as the carrier's route and fleet structure made the operation unprofitable.
The lack of adequate traffic to sustain operations on all these routes adversely affected the company's financial performance. After a review, the number of stations on the operational network was brought down to 48 on 31 March 1991.
Night Air Mail Service
In 1985, Vayudoot started operating the Inland Night Air Mail Service (NAMS), a domestic overnight airmail service for the Indian Postal Service.The facility of this Vayudoot airmail service was also extended to a private courier. Every night, flights from the major metropolitan cities of India converged upon Nagpur Airport in the centre of the country. Usually the routing was :
- Delhi-Jaipur-Nagpur
- Calcutta-Varanasi-Nagpur
- Bombay-Nagpur
- Madras-Hyderabad-Nagpur
Despite a successful run of over a year, the service was discontinued because of demanding nature of the operation. The unpressurised Dornier Do 228 was limited to an altitude of 10,000 ft. The aircraft was dependent on ground based enroute navigational facilities and these were far and few between on many of the legs. Flying exclusively at night and negotiating violent storms called Kal baisakhi, followed by the Monsoon and in the absence of Radio navigation aids it became advisable discontinue the operation.
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