East-West Group

The East-West Group is a Bombay-based business house run by the Wahid family with specific interests in aviation and the travel industry. The East-West Group ran and operated East-West Airlines, India's first private airline that started operations in 1993. The airline subsequently folded up in 1996 after the assassination of its Managing Director Thakiyudeen Wahid due to Bombay underworld rivalries in 1995.

The Group is headed today by NRI businessman Nasiruddin Wahid and his brother, the Bombay-based Faisal Wahid who while maintaining their positions as leading travel agents and businessmen with substantial stakes in several companies, plan to re-launch their airline sometime this year upon permission from the Civil Aviation Authorities in India.

Faisal Wahid has been quoted as saying that East-West Airlines plans to re-launch operaions as a low-cost airline to compete with the numerous airlines that have come up in India's mushrooming aviation sector. The airline also plans a new corporate identity to distance itself with East-West Airlines that was notoriously hounded by its alleged connections to the underworld.

The Group's Chairman Nasiruddin Wahid has said at a press conference in Bahrain that the Wahid family along with their investors are putting together a $2 billion re-launch program that will span a period of 5 years as they try to re-penetrate the Indian aviation market.