Jet Airways said on Tuesday the domestic aviation industry would soon witness a shakeout, but hoped the country's largest private airline would come out of it unscathed.
The Centre for Asia-Pacific Aviation also expects India's airlines to post a combined loss of a whopping $1.4 billion, with Air India likely to be the 'worst performer' to report a loss of almost the entire amount of $1.3 billion.
Naresh Goyal becomes the country's first airline promoter to receive foreign investment.
Private carrier Jet Airways is expected to further consolidate its international operations into a major revenue grosser in FY09, to overcome the growing turbulence in the domestic sector. The general economic scenario does not bode well for capacity expansion on domestic routes, with some of these struggling on account of overcapacity, and only yesterday some airlines were pushed to hike fares to make up for higher aviation turbine fuel prices.
Airline now financially more stable but still in the doldrums as the operating environment remains tough.
'There will be no flying unless the company pays us substantial salaries and provides a road map,' the National Aviators Guild, the pilots union, said in a message to its members.
Major domestic airlines on Wednesday said they were considering imposing a fuel surcharge and hiking air fares following the announcement of a Rs 1,600/kl rise in jet fuel prices from midnight on Wednesday.
RPI-A chief Ramdas Athawale was on Tuesday allegedly not allowed to board a Jet Airways aircraft.
Though a formal purchase agreement with Boeing is yet to be signed, SpiceJet's order size could be of 40-50 planes, a source familiar with the development said. At list price, a 737 Max aircraft is valued at about $100 million (Rs 620 crore).
The airlines is in talks with Oman Air and Etihad.
India's latest airline will now fly in a swirl of blue. Four months after being taken over by Jet, the erstwhile Air Sahara in its new avatar as JetLite is already showing signs of perking up while readying its new livery.
Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal on Wednesday said that he would have no option but to follow 'the law of the land' if an action had to be taken against the agitating pilots, while appealing to them to resolve the matter amicably and return to work. Meanwhile, Goyal met Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel in the wake of the agitation by the airline pilots.
A slowdown in international passenger traffic has forced Jet Airways to cancel two flights on the Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco route. The airline pulled out flights operating on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, citing a dip in load factors. Incidentally, the decision has been taken barely a week before Jet launches its Dubai operations on August 23.
IndiGo declined to comment on the matter
A senior civil aviation ministry official said this was one of the key issues discussed during Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel's meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday to ask for a relief on ATF. Top airline executives like Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal and Kingfisher Airlines Chairman Vijay Mallya also met the PM to highlight the issue.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India has cleared the initial public offer of Jet Airways.
The alliance, announced in a late night press conference on Monday, will involve code-sharing on domestic and international flights, an interline agreement, joint fuel management, common ground-handling services and cross-selling flights through the global ticketing system.
Jet Airways, which is involved in a tussle with its failed takeover target Air Sahara, on Tuesday failed to get respite from an Arbitration panel on its plea for refund of Rs 500 crore (Rs 5 billion) paid as advance.
Jet Airways' pilots won't get much sympathy, but the management hasn't quite covered itself in glory either.
Flight cancellations and subsequent grounding of Jet Airways adversely impacted seat capacity in the domestic market which also resulted in fares going up.
Subsequent to a failed acquisition deal, Air Sahara, on Friday, filed a Rs 3,020 crore (Rs 30.2 billion) claim against Jet Airways for non-completion of the agreement.
The operations of many global carriers, including Qatar Airways, have also been impacted due to the airspace curbs in the wake of the Middle East tensions.
Jet Airways is pushing web sales to increase its revenue and cut distribution costs. The airline is selling 100,000 seats at a discount to drive this strategy.
Private sector carrier Jet Airways on Tuesday said it has entered into an agreement with the US-based United Airlines for codeshare and frequent flier programme benefits for their customers.
The agreement between the two airlines came on the second day of the four-day state visit of Mukherjee to the country.
Jet also recently announced plans to launch direct flights to Brussels this summer, launching itself as a direct rival to Air India on flights between India and Europe.
Yogvedanta Poddar, in his 20s, was being interrogated at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport police station to ascertain his motives.
On the high costs facing the Indian airline industry, Goyal said the factors included a depreciating rupee against the dollar, escalating jet fuel prices, high taxes and rising infrastructure costs.
Rival airlines expect Jet Airways to restore some "sanity" in the pricing of tickets after the acquisition of Air Sahara.
Rakesh Jhunjhunwala-backed new airline Akasa is in talks with US aerospace company Boeing for buying up to 100 737 Max aircraft. Former Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube and his family members are promoters while ex-IndiGo president Aditya Ghosh is a board member of the airline. The airline is in negotiation with Boeing and has reached out to the government to recertify the aircraft which has been grounded since 2018 after two crashes killing 349 persons, according to sources in the know.
Jet had planned to raise $400 million (Rs 2,000 crore) via equity investment through the Qualified Institutions Placements route from Foreign Institutional Investors.
Improvement in load factors, coupled with an increase in seat capacity after Jet's slots were allotted to low-cost airlines, has resulted in an increase in daily passenger traffic.
Jet is believed to be in talks with leading private equity players.
The Delhi high court has directed SpiceJet to deposit "forthwith" Rs 75 crore that has to be paid to media baron Kalanidhi Maran and his Kal Airways towards interest on an arbitral award of Rs 578 crore. The high court said, admittedly, there is no modification of the February 13, 2023 order passed by the Supreme Court in the case, and hence it needs to be followed. "Since the judgment debtor (SpiceJet) had failed to pay an amount of Rs 75 crores to decree holder (Maran and Kal Airways), hence in terms of para 15 (ii) of the order dated February 13, 2023 of the Supreme Court, there is no other alternative except to call upon the judgment debtors to deposit the entire outstanding amount qua interest forthwith, thus is so directed.
Three months after joining the budget carrier JetLite, Finnish CEO Maunu von Lueders plans to quit the organization at a time when its parent Jet Airways intends to merge the back-end operations to cut costs.
Jet Airways, India's largest privately-owned airline, has approached the US Exim Bank and European export credit agencies to reschedule a $2 billion loan (Rs 10,000-crore) loan that was raised to buy 27 Boeing and eight Airbus aircraft.
Following the market buzz, the stock opened the day on a bullish note and further jumped 6.13 per cent to Rs 590 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
