Jet Airways, once among India’s largest airlines, will restart its operations from the first quarter of 2022, the new owners of the airline have said.
The Jalan Kalrock consortium has confirmed that Jet Airways will begin its operations again, with a flight from Mumbai to New Delhi. Representatives of the consortium have visited airports in the last month, for the same.
“We received NCLT approval in June 2021, and since then we have been working closely with all concerned authorities to get the airline back in the skies. Jet Airways 2.0 aims at restarting domestic operations by Q1-2022, and short haul international operations by Q3/Q4 2022. Our plan is to have 50+ aircraft in 3 years and 100+ in 5 years,” Murari Lal Jalan, lead member of the Jalan Kalrock Consortium and the proposed non-executive chairman of Jet Airways said.
In an interview to ET, Dubai-based businessman Jalan had earlier said the airline would start in July 2021. Later its court appointed resolution professional reportedly said it would start flying by December 2021.
In the near future, ie., by the third or fourth quarter of 2022, the airlines will also resume international short haul flights. They plan to increase their fleet of planes to 50 in three years, and raise that to 100 in five years.
“The aircraft are being selected based on competitive long term leasing solutions. It is the first time in the history of aviation that an airline grounded for more than two years is being revived and we are looking forward to being a part of this historic journey. The brand Jet Airways has a huge loyalty-base and we are confident that we will be able to capitalise and create new benchmarks. We would like to assure all our loyal Jet Airways guests that your favourite airline will soon be back in the skies,” Jalan added.
Unlike Jet Airways 1.0, this time the headquarters of the airline will be based in Gurugram. Newly appointed Cap,tain Sudhir Gaur, acting CEO of the airline and member of the Jalan Kalrock Consortium said, “In its new avatar, Jet Airways will now be headquartered in Delhi NCR with its senior management working from the corporate office at Gurugram. However, Jet Airways will continue to have strong and significant presence in Mumbai where it will work from its ‘Global One’ office in Kurla. Jet Airways also has a state-of-the-art training centre located at Global One, which will be retained and used for in-house training for the Jet Airways team.”
