NEW DELHI: There is no respite in near sight for Jet Airways, which has already grounded two-thirds of its aircraft and has been cancelling several scheduled flights everyday, as the crisis is set to continue further. Separately, a trade union on Tuesday said that the carrier’s pilots have threatened to stop flying from April 1 if Jet does not have a rescue plan in place by March 31.
In a meeting held on Tuesday, Jet executives informed aviation watchdog Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) that the “current availability of aircraft in the fleet for operation is 41 and accordingly, a schedule for 603 domestic flights and 382 international flights has been drawn.”
Union Minister for Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu had directed the secretary and DGCA officials to review the grounding of planes by Jet Airways, advance bookings, cancellations, refund and safety issues.
Earlier, in a letter to the DGCA, the Jet Airways Aircraft Maintenance Engineers’ Association said that “it has been arduous to meet financial requirements, which has adversely affected the psychological condition of aircraft engineers and therefore the safety of public transport airplanes being flown by Jet Airways across India and the world is at risk.” Jet in a statement, however, said that its planes are safe to fly and are being maintained at the highest level of safety.
Prabhu has also directed DGCA to maintain airworthiness of aircraft being used in schedule and avoid last-minute cancellation or change in schedule so as to minimise passenger inconvenience.
Separately, DGCA is reviewing the hike in airfare on specific routes across the country and it has advised airlines to increase flights so that the fares remain in check.
“We have not issued any diktat to the airlines. We have just advised them that they should increase their capacity to keep airfares in check,” a senior DGCA official said.
Spot airfares in many routes has gone up by as much as 100 per cent since the grounding of 12 of SpiceJet’s 737 Max aircraft on March 13 following the Ethiopian Airlines crash and rise in the number of planes grounded by Jet Airways.
Jet Airways is reeling under a debt of over `8,000 crore has been defaulting on loan repayment, delaying salaries to staff and rentals to lessors. On 14 February, Jet Airways board approved a bank-led bailout plan, whereby lenders would become the largest shareholders in the airline, but has so far seen no infusion of liquid funds.