East West Airlines, The Pioneers of the Indian Private Airline Industry

Just in case you are not aware, East-West Airlines was the first scheduled private airline in India to take off the ground after the Open Skies policy was announced in 1991. The airline stopped operations in 1996.

Even to this day, the members of the EWA team cherish the memories of the airline. The airline started its Operations on 28th Feb 1992, with their first flight from Bombay to Cochin, under flight number EW786 till the Airline stopped its operation in 1996.

The airline was owned by a family hailing from Varkala, Kerala and the Managing Director was Mr. Thakiyudeen Wahid.

Unfortunately, the Managing Director of the Airline was shot dead in Mumbai by some miscreants and not much later the Airlines ceased its Operations. On 13 November 1995 the company's managing director Thankiyudeen was shot dead near his Mumbai office.

The Airline used to have Boeing 737 – 200 and Fokker 27 Aircrafts in its fleet operation to almost all major airports in India.

The dream of 100’s of people to work for an airline became fruitful as the Indian government came up with the open sky policy whereby permitting private airlines to operate in India and large number of people were lucky to be part of the airline who were the pioneers in the private airline industry in India.

There were also few other private airlines which existed during that period which is no more in operation now. Some to name, NEPC, MODILUFT, SAHARA etc.

In 1992, Pilots of the then domestic carrier Indian Airlines went on strike and for a period of close to 45 days East West was the carrier which served most of the Cities with multiple flights by which lot of inconvenience was reduced for the passenger stranded in various places.