India’s Jet Airways looks to settle debts and expedite relaunch

Jet Airways is planning to resume flight operations early next year, the Jalan Kalrock Consortium has said adding that they have petitioned the Mumbai Bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to allow them to expedite their recapitalisation of the dormant carrier as per their plan, which was approved by the NCLT back in June.

In a statement to the Indian press last week, the airline’s new promoters asked the court to allow them to execute the plan as of December 22 and thus pay all stakeholders, including former employees and ticket claimants. They added that Jet was busy revalidating its existing Air Operator Permit (AOP) which was suspended back in 2019. The process with India’s Directorate General for Civil Aviation (DGCA) began back in August this year, soon after the NCLT consented to the consortium’s plan. As such, the pursuit of a renewed licence has been expedited in an effort to meet the early 2022 launch timeline.

“We are in regular touch with the DGCA and the Ministry of Civil Aviation to have Jet’s AOP revalidated and we thank the authorities for their continued support. Jet Airways has an existing AOP valid until 2023, which was only suspended in 2019 due to the financial health of the company then, and the current process taken up is towards removing the said suspension, so the time required for getting the AOP revalidated will be substantially less in comparison to obtaining a fresh AOC by a new company,” the Jalan Kalrock Consortium said.

Florian Fritsch of Kalrock Capital Partners added that talks are underway with Airbus (AIB, Toulouse Blagnac) and Boeing (BOE, Chicago O’Hare) over Jet’s plans to operate a fleet of over 100 aircraft by 2027. For its launch, it is looking to use six unspecified narrowbody jets.

On the crucial issue of slots at India’s main airports, including Delhi Int’l and Mumbai Int’l, the consortium said it had been been working closely with the Ministry of Civil Aviation and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to secure access to the gateway airfields as well as overnight parking space.

“We have held multiple rounds of discussions with all key airports which form part of the initial network plan and are confident to get the required slots in the Summer schedule of 2022,” it said.