With the interim bank funding of `1,500 crore still not flowing to Jet Airways, the crisis at the beleaguered airline has deepened to the extent that it is left with operating only 15 aircraft on the domestic routes as on Wednesday. This is the lowest number of aircraft being operated by any carrier on the domestic routes. Even newer airlines like AirAsia India and Vistara operate 20 and 22 aircraft, respectively, on domestic routes.
As per rules, an airline can only fly on international routes if it has 20 aircraft on domestic routes, but Jet may get a breather for sometime as this data is not monitored on a real-time basis.
However, civil aviation secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola sounded a warning by stating that Jet’s entitlement to fly international destinations needs to examined in the wake of fresh grounding.
