After flying for 25 years, Jet Airways Wednesday announced temporary grounding of operations after the lenders declined a Rs 400-crore lifeline, putting at stake 20,000 jobs and thousands of crores in passenger refunds, dues to vendors and over Rs 8,500 crore to banks.
Founded by Naresh Goyal, who began as a general sales agent to a host of international airlines with travel agency Jetair, the full-service carrier served tens of millions of passengers for over two-and-half decades, before becoming the seventh domestic carrier to shutter operations in the past five years.
However, the once-premier airline flew into deeper turbulence-second in its history after the 2010 crisis– after four back-to-back quarterly losses, leaving it gasping for financial breath and forcing it to default on payments to nearly all–from banks to lessors, to employees, and eventually leading to the shutdown from tonight as its fleet strength has crimped to just about five planes from 123 in December last.
