Air Kerala: The Kochi Airline That Still Has Not Taken Off

Kerala has spent decades sending its people to the skies. The Gulf remittance economy was practically built in the departure lounges of Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram. So there is something fitting, and something frustrating, about the state's long-promised airline of its own. Air Kerala has a headquarters in Kochi, a government no-objection certificate, a chief executive and an IATA code. What it does not have is an aircraft or a licence to carry passengers. As of the middle of 2026 it has never operated a commercial flight.

Requirement	Status
Government no-objection certificate	Granted July 2024, for three years
Security clearance	Held, from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security
IATA code	Assigned, KD, confirmed only once an AOC is held
Aircraft	None, no lease closed on the planned three ATR 72-600s
Air Operator Certificate from the DGCA	Not granted, certification stalled without an aircraft
Commercial flights	None as of the middle of 2026

Who is behind Air Kerala?

The Kochi connection is real enough. The project is run by Zettfly Aviation, a private company backed by the UAE-based entrepreneurs Afi Ahmed and Ayub Kallada, which received a no-objection certificate from the Ministry of Civil Aviation in July 2024 to run scheduled commuter air services and markets itself under the Air Kerala name. The head office, a three-floor facility near Aluva Metro station, opened in Kochi on 15 April 2025 and was inaugurated by Kerala Industries Minister P. Rajeeve. It has been carrying salaries and overheads since, with no ticket revenue coming the other way. For a metro that already anchors so much of the state's air traffic through Cochin International Airport, a carrier headquartered in town would be a genuine milestone. The office exists. The airline, in the sense of aeroplanes and passengers, does not yet.

What routes will Air Kerala fly?

The model on paper is refreshingly specific. Rather than chase the crowded trunk routes, Air Kerala has said it will start with three ATR 72-600s, the sturdy regional turboprops built for shorter runways and smaller airfields, stitching together the smaller cities of south and central India that the big jets tend to skip, at ultra-low-cost fares. The first flight was meant to go out of Kannur. Gulf routes, the part that would matter most to Kerala, were pencilled in as a later phase needing narrow-body jets rather than turboprops. It is a niche the Indian market has struggled to serve well, and exactly the kind of connectivity that benefits a hub city.

Some of the gates have been cleared. Air Kerala holds security clearance from the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, and it has been assigned the IATA two-letter code KD, which its founder has said stands for Kerala Dream. That code is only confirmed once the airline holds an Air Operator Certificate from the DGCA, and that is where the whole thing has stalled.

Certification cannot move past its middle stages until the applicant can show it actually has an aircraft on its books, and Air Kerala has not managed to close a lease. Reporting through 2025 and 2026 describes lessors, made wary by the collapse of Go First, asking new Indian carriers for a year of rent up front or proof of a bank balance in the region of Rs 200 crore. The original June 2025 launch date came and went, and so has every date since. Kerala's other startup carrier, Alhind Air, is stuck at much the same point, which points to a structural problem rather than one promoter's bad luck.

What it means for the city

Kochi's air links have been on a steady upward curve regardless. Cochin International Airport has been expanding its schedule season on season, and the city has been the subject of ambitious talk about the future of flying, from air-taxi vertiports to joined-up Water Metro links to the terminal. A homegrown regional airline would be the more grounded version of that ambition: not flying cars, just an easier flight to a mid-sized town you actually need to reach. The catch is that none of it is bookable yet.

The road ahead

There is a clock running. The no-objection certificate Zettfly received in July 2024 was granted for three years, which puts its outer edge in 2027, and the promoters have been asking the central government to help break the deadlock with aircraft lessors. The overseas ambition is still there, Gulf services being the natural fit given how many Keralites the region carries every day, but that is a later phase of a plan whose first phase has not begun. For now the honest summary is that Kochi has an airline head office, a brand, a code and a plan, and no flights. For more on how the city's economy keeps building around its transport spine, our guide to Kochi as a business hub is a good place to start, and you can find local operators over on our business directory.

An airline is more than a logo on a tailfin. For a state that has always measured itself partly by who it sends abroad and who it welcomes home, having one of its own, run from Kochi, would be a real point of pride. Which is exactly why the status is worth reporting plainly rather than reprinting the ambition. When Air Kerala flies, it will be news here. It has not flown yet.