Bengaluru: Indian low-cost airline pioneer Air Deccan, which would be taking to the sky again in the coming days, would be commencing service to its Karnataka routes from February 2018, with a flight between Chennai and Mysuru.

Air Deccan Promoter Capt. G.R. Gopinath said, “We will be commencing our Chennai-Mysuru flight in February. There onwards, we would also be starting flights on the Kadapa-Bengaluru and Salem-Bengaluru routes.”

The airline, which got a new lease of life under the regional air connectivity scheme UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagarik) signed a strategic agreement with another low-cost regional carrier Air Odisha, by which it will be taking care of Operations and Maintenance (O&M) for both carriers, which would help bring down costs. “Of the 136 routes under UDAN, we bid for and received 84 routes across the country,” he said. The airline, which Gopinath founded in 2003, merged with Vijay Mallya’s Kingfisher Airlines in 2008, which itself grounded in 2012, owing to financial difficulties.