Three diamond barons and a prominent developer, including the one who was recently in news for distributing cars, diamonds and jewellery to his employees as Diwali bonus, are planning to bring Mumbai within 20 minutes' reach from Surat.

The plan is part of regional air connectivity which their airline started recently between small cities in Gujarat with non-scheduled flights operating between Surat, Bhavnagar and Rajkot, which its operators claim is getting passenger occupancy of around 82 per cent. The airline management is now in the process of seeking approval from Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and Airport Authority of India (AAI) to connect Mumbai with the diamond hub of Surat. A meeting in this regard was held here on Tuesday.

The promoters, whose main business centres around diamond polishing and exports, have even christened the airline as Diamond Aeronautics Pvt Ltd after taking over Air Ventura a few months back. The airline has been set up at the initial cost of over Rs 50 crore.

"There is tremendous demand for connecting Mumbai to Surat due to the business opportunity the two cities offer," says Ishvar Dholakiya, MD, Diamond Aeronautics Pvt Ltd. When asked to comment as what made them start an airline, when most of the airlines are in bad financial health, Kartikey Garasia, CEO of the airline said the vision of the airline and its promoter's vision is to give regional air connectivity a boost and therefore the question of profit or loss does not arise. The airline presently operates with two nine-seater and one four-seater planes.

The promoters include diamond industry barons including Govind Dholakiya of SRK Exports, Savji Dholakiya of Hari Krishna Exports and Lalji Patel of Dharmanand Diamonds and leading developer Lavji Dalia.

Savji, whose company has a turnover of over 6,000 crore, was all over the newspapers and television news in October last year after he declared Diwali bonus to 1,201 of his employees, gifting 424 of them with Fiat Punto Evo cars, 207 with two bedroom apartments and 570 employees jewellery worth Rs 3.6 lakh each.

A similar service connecting smaller cities in Maharashtra was planned by Marol-based Supreme Aviation in October last year. The airline was seeking subsidy from the state government of around seven seats per flight. However, the plan never took off.