Way back in 1970’s, Raymond was the first ‘Private Company’ in India, to start ‘Air Taxi Operations’ with three Douglas DC-3 Dakota aircraft. It was known by the name of Safari Airways (Pvt) Ltd.

Safari Airways operated scheduled passenger services between Delhi, Jaipur and Kota and later had regular services between Bombay, Surat & Bhavnagar and Bombay, Keshod & Porbander.

In-spite of government’s anti-private sector policies during that period, these operations ran for few years with these 50 year old Dakota aircraft. Due to Government’s policies not being conducive to ‘Air Taxi Operations’, these operations were stopped in late 1980’s.

As a memory of this first Air Taxi operations, one of these World War II vintage, Douglas DC-3 Dakota [VT-CEB] is preserved within our Raymond premises in Thane.