A multi-pronged strategy has been rolled into action to minimise the pain caused by Jet Airways\u2019 shutdown for both passengers and employees, without using taxpayers\u2019 money to bail out the airline. The finance ministry has decided to waive the mandatory customs requirement that Jet\u2019s grounded planes in India must first be sent to the country of registration of their lessors and then fly them back to India before they can be used by other carriers. This will speed up lease of Jet planes to other airlines. <\/p>\n
Simultaneously, Air India and SpiceJet have started working on plans to induct Jet\u2019s planes. While SpiceJet has initiated the process to take over 22 of Jet\u2019s Boeing 737s, AI is looking at Jet\u2019s five B777s, B737s for AI Express and may even consider the wide-bodied Airbus A330. In all, AI may take 10 to 12 of Jet\u2019s planes and SpiceJet may take a few more in the coming weeks. <\/p>\n
To operate these planes, AI and SpiceJet will take aircraft with operating crew from Jet. This, authorities hope, will help provide employment to at least some of Jet\u2019s employees \u2014 pilots, engineers and cabin crew and the additional flights will help bring down fares. <\/p>\n
On Friday, AI chief Ashwani Lohani discussed the issue with SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar at the airline\u2019s headquarters in the capital. \u201cThe nuts and bolts of leasing Jet\u2019s aircraft was discussed between the two. Facing a serious cabin crew shortage, AI has hired 500 crew members from the private sector, hospitality sector and airlines in the last one month and nearly half of them have come from Jet Airways. We plan to wet-lease five Boeing 777s and Boeing 737s for AI Express, which means we may take the planes with operating crew of Jet,\u201d said a senior AI official. AI wants to add flights from Delhi to London, Dubai and Singapore, and from Mumbai to London and Dubai on Jet\u2019s B777s. <\/p>\n
Among Indian carriers, only AI and Jet have operated twin-aisle aircraft (not counting Kingfisher and Air Sahara) like Boeing 787, 777 and 747 and Airbus A330. That means AI is the only Indian carrier that can start operating Jet\u2019s wide-bodied planes without much delay. Tata Group-Singapore Airlines JV Vistara had last summer placed an order for six B787-9 Dreamliners (with an option to order four more) that will start joining its fleet from next January. <\/p>\n
AI has a number of planes \u2014 two B777s, four B787s and 13 A320s \u2014 on ground, mainly for want of engines due to a crippling cash crunch. The airline is trying to get funds from the government for making these planes operational and hopes to have many of them back in the air by July. \u201cSince that process will take time, we want to start using Jet\u2019s wide-bodied planes at the earliest. Once our own planes are back in air, we can continue using all the planes, depending on the outcome of Jet\u2019s proposed revival,\u201d said a senior official. <\/p>\n
SpiceJet chairman Ajay Singh said, as his airline grows, \u201cWe will induct a large number of planes in our fleet soon. SpiceJet is making all possible efforts to minimise passenger inconvenience and serve Indian customers, who are finding it difficult to get seats this busy season.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A multi-pronged strategy has been rolled into action to minimise the pain caused by Jet Airways\u2019 shutdown for both passengers and employees, without using taxpayers\u2019 money to bail out the airline. The finance ministry has decided to waive the mandatory customs requirement that Jet\u2019s grounded planes in India must first be sent to the country of registration of their lessors and then fly them back to India before they can be used by other carriers. This will speed up lease of Jet planes to other airlines. Simultaneously, Air India and SpiceJet have started working on plans to induct Jet\u2019s planes. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-civil-aviation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270060\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/infralive.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}