Indian airline Jet Airways has announced the suspension of all domestic and international operations. All flights will be cancelled, starting today, April 17th.
This comes after the airline had already grounded most of its fleet and temporarily cancelled large amounts of flights, including all international services.
The 1992-founded privately-owned carrier, which until recently, was India’s second largest airline, is in deep financial problems and now failed to secure an emergency funding with its biggest lender, the State Bank of India (SBI). Jet Airways had more than US $1.2 billion in debt. It was unable to pay the salaries of many of its employees (including pilots), as well as leasing fees for most of its aircraft, maintenance costs, and fuel expenses. As a result, large parts of the airline’s fleet had not been flying for weeks and thousands of flights were cancelled.
It is currently unknown whether Jet Airways will be able to restart operations. The airline stated that this suspension is only a ‘temporary’ measure. However, it mentioned no specific plan or timeline for a possible resumption of flights. A consortium led by the State Bank of India (SBI) is in active talks with several parties regarding a sale of up to 75% of Jet Airways’ stake.
As of today, Jet Airways was operating less than 10 aircraft; down from 124 in December.
Jakob Wert is an aviation journalist from Germany. He built up the website IFN.news and is the Editor-In-Chief of International Flight Network.
