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deaphen · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 933 Location: India

Hi

When i was really young.. we always used to fly to Delhi from Chandigarh on Vayudoot. Infact we either drove or flew.. taking the train was unheard off. I remember the fare was just a couple of hundrer rupees and i can still remember the distinct smell of their aircraft (mainly jet fuel) and the little zip lock white plastic kits the would give you with orange round sweets and cottonwool to put in your ears!

I need as much information about them as possible including pics if anyone has any. I need to know when it was started, where it flew, which planes they had, what was their reputation? basically i need everything!

Thanks
nitin

himmat01 · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 1392 Location: DEL

From memory,

Vayudoot was started in 1982-83 as a feeder airline. It took over all the HS748s and F27s of Indian Airlines. Later it acquired DO228s but the MX was very poor. There were a lot of incidents with the Dorniers. It even earned a nick name of "Yamdoot".

It mainly operated on feeder routes from the metros. In the south, it had flights to places like Salem, Pondicherry, Tuticorin, Mysore, Hubli, Belguam, Hassan and Tirupati besides the major airports. It flew to places like Bhavnagar, Rajkot, Bhuj and Diu in Gujrat. If I remember correctly, there were flights to Jodhpur, Jaipur and even Kota in Rajasthan. In the north there were flights to IXC, Simla, Bhuntar, Dehradoon..... It had a major hub at CCU and had an extensive network in the NE.

By 1994, most of it's Dorniers were lying in scrapped condition at DEL. The airline was merged into Indian Airlines. Only 2 of it's Dorniers survive. They operate on Cochin-Agatti sector.

It had leased a B757-200 from Royal Nepal Airlines and flew night flights on BOM-DEL sector.

Here is an image of it's 1992 timetable with DO228 on cover page.

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malQ · Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 6:47 pm Post subject:

In addition, Vayudoot was a bit of a present for a pretty young man named Harsha Vardhan, in the days when positions were given for a variety of reasons. Vayudoot would often operate Delhi - Ludhiana (a route which went full at that time because the Shatabdi Express concept was still new, and the Flying Queen was the fastest train on that route. (There was no Express train from Delhi to Chandigarh, except the Kalka Mail which took all night)

In one glorious incident, the door of an Avro HS-748 flew open. There was also a crash on the Pune-Mumbai route, if I recall correctly.

Aseem · Member Joined: 15 Dec 2006 Posts: 2841 Location: YYZ

Akshay · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 315 Location: Mumbai

Some of us have given fairly detailed answers. What I learnt in std 10th about Vayudoot was that it is an airline operating in the north-east region of India. It didn't mention anything about south.
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COUGAR · Member Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 986 Location: Bangalore

Vayudoot as an idea was correct, and indeed a niche exists in that segment even today: that is for flying Tier-3 routes with 10 to 60 seat aircrat.

Their initial mandate was the NE and They firsdt started out with Fokkers and HS748's leased out from IC with Line Maintenance etc being done by IC. And they did achieve success in that.

The induction of the Dorniers gave a boost and meant that Vayudoot could turn a decent profit thanks to the superb economics of the the Dornier 228: according to one ex-Vayudoot staffer I talked to the Dornier flights could turn a operationalprofit with just 5 of the 18 seats sold! Remember these were the days before APEX! The Dorniers were used to open up services to places which never had services before: imagine Akola, Nanded, Rajahmundry, Cuddapah, Ratnagiri, Bellary, Salem, Mandya etc.

However the Dorniers were never maintained properly and were grossly abused. The line-maintenance of their HS748's etc were done by IC and HAL so they were comparatively better off.

There was 1 crash involving a Dornier operating on the PNQ-HYD sector which was attributed to bad-weather. Another Fokker F27 crashed int he NE (on the same day that IC had 2 737 crashes. ON THE SAME DAY!!).

What did them in was over-ambitious expansion. A model like this works well, and there is a market for serving smaller stations. However a station can be viable only with a min freq of 1 daily flight if not more. Vayudoot on the other hand launched stations even with 1 flight a week: partly out of poor planning and partly becoz Harsh Vardhan wanted to please every single MP and poiltician who wanted to introduce airservice to his little village.
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COUGAR · Member Joined: 01 Jan 2007 Posts: 986 Location: Bangalore

Latest gossip on the vine is that this Harsh Vardhan character is going to head a new airline called "MDLR" operating RJ70's: What can I say except "All the best!"
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himmat01 · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 1392 Location: DEL

Vayudoot flew to 18 towns in the NE including the far-flung Zero, Rapanzo, Passighat, Along, Tezu, Kamalpur, Kailashahar, Rupasi and Lilabari.
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ABN397 · Member Joined: 27 Dec 2006 Posts: 113 Location: India

ABN397 · Member Joined: 27 Dec 2006 Posts: 113 Location: India

ABN397 · Member Joined: 27 Dec 2006 Posts: 113 Location: India

TKMCE · Member Joined: 27 Feb 2007 Posts: 957

HAWK21M · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:17 am Post subject:

http://aviation-safety.net/database/operator/airline.php?var=4636
regds
MEL
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