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There is chaos for travellers after one of the biggest airlines in the world suddenly collapsed, leaving its fleet of planes grounded.
India’s debt-stricken Jet Airways has halted all of its operations after failing to secure emergency funding from lenders, leaving it teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. “Jet Airways is compelled to cancel all its international and domestic flights. The last flight will operate today,” the airline said in statement. Jet Airways, India's oldest private airline, grounded almost all of its operations yesterday after it failed to secure emergency funding from state-backed lenders, who took control of the company last month as part of a rare move by the Indian government to rescue a private company. The company, which was until recently the country's second-largest airline by market share, had already suspended all international flights and was operating fewer than 10 aircraft out of a fleet of 119 jets. It has not paid its senior staff, including pilots and engineers, since December. Two sources at state-run banks told Reuters news agency on Wednesday that the banks had rejected $58 million (€51 million) in emergency funding that Jet had sought to keep itself temporarily afloat, while its lenders, led by the State Bank of India, looked for a buyer for a majority stake in the airline. "Bankers did not want to go for a piecemeal approach that would keep the carrier flying for a few days and then again risk having Jet come back for more interim funding," Reuters quoted one of the bank sources directly involved in Jet's bailout process as saying.
The carrier, saddled with roughly $1.2 billion of bank debt, has been struggling for more than a decade to remain afloat in the face of competition from a host of budget airlines. The airline was pinched further last year when Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government slapped a 5% import duty on jet fuel, which accounts for about a third of the carrier's costs, even as oil prices rose globally and the rupee fell to record lows.
Jet Airways was incorporated on the 1st April 1992, with capital investment obtained from Tail Winds, a company registered in Isle of Man. It started operations as an air taxi operator on the 5th May 1993, operating flight 9W321 from Bombay to Ahmedabad. In its first financial year, Jet airways served 12 destinations in India and carried 663,000 passengers and had a 6.6% market share. The airline had a fleet of four Boeing 737-300 aircraft leased from Ansett Worldwide, making it the first operator of the type in the country. By the next year, it was India's second largest private airline, having carried 1.7 million passengers in 1994. The fleet grew to seven aircraft, including three Boeing 737-400 aircraft leased from Malaysian Airlines. On 12 May 1994, all of Jet Airways' shares were transferred to Tailwinds International, whose equity capital was held by Naresh Goyal (60%), Gulf Air (20%) and Kuwait Airways (20%).
As of March 2019 the Jet Airways fleet consisted of the following aircraft:
| Aircraft | In Service | Orders | Passengers | Notes | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| F | J | Y | Total | ||||
| Airbus A330-200 | 5 | — | — | 18 | 236 | 254 | |
| Airbus A330-300 | 4 | — | — | 34 | 259 | 293 | |
| ATR 72-500 | 15 | — | — | — | 72 | 72 | |
| ATR 72-600 | 1 | — | — | — | 72 | 72 | |
| Boeing 737-700 | 4 | — | — | 8 | 126 | 134 | |
| Boeing 737-800 | 65 | — | — | 12 | 156 | 168 | |
| Boeing 737-900 | 2 | — | — | 28 | 138 | 166 | |
| Boeing 737-900ER | 4 | — | — | 12 | 172 | 184 | |
| Boeing 737 MAX 8 | 5 | 142 | — | 12 | 162 | 174 | |
| Boeing 737 MAX 9 | — | 75 | TBA | ||||
| Boeing 777-300ER | 10 | — | 8 | 30 | 308 | 346 | |
| Boeing 787-9 | — | 10 | TBA | ||||
| Total | 115 | 227 | |||||
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