Sources said Jet Airways conducted the first set of three proving flights with 18 people, including officials from the aviation regulator DGCA, on board the aircraft. They said that the second set of two proving flights will be operated by Jet Airways on Tuesday.
Sources said that verification of flights is the last step for the airline to obtain the certificate of the air operator AOC. The first of three proving flights was conducted on the Delhi-Mumbai route.
The second flight was scheduled to return to Delhi, but officials at the Directorate General Civil Aviation DGCA asked the pilots to divert it to Ahmedabad after it left Mumbai.
They said that the DGCA diverts aircraft during proving flights to test the readiness of a new airline in handling such situations.
The second flight safely landed in Ahmedabad and the third flight was conducted on Ahmedabad-Delhi route later in the day.
They said the aircraft used for these three proving flights was a Boeing 737 plane with the registration number VT-SXE of Jet Airways.
There were 18 people -- four cabin crew members, two pilots and 12 others -- including DGCA officials and senior executives of Jet Airways -- on board the plane during these three proving flights, sources said.
A total of five landings and five flights have to be completed by the aircraft to complete its proving flights, they said. They said three landings were conducted on Sunday and the remaining two will be conducted on Tuesday.
Jet Airways didn't respond to PTI's request for a statement on the matter of its proving flights. On May 5th, Jet Airways had conducted its test flight from Hyderabad to and from Hyderabad as a step towards obtaining the AOC.
The airline in its old avatar was owned by Naresh Goyal and had its last flight on April 17, 2019. The Jalan-Kalrock Consortium is currently the promoter of Jet Airways.
The airline plans to restart commercial flight operations in July-September of this year.