Jet Airways has extended its suspension of international services to 18 April, as uncertainty around an interim debt facility and potential bidders for a controlling stake in the ailing airline swirls.
Jet confirmed that the suspension, originally scheduled to end on 15 April, has been extended but provided no further updates on the status of a R15 billion ($215 million) interim loan facility that it had announced on 25 March.
The cash-strapped airline may be unable to sustain its scaled-back operations beyond the next week unless additional funding can be secured.
Jet confirms that it is down to operating a fleet of seven aircraft on domestic flights but would not say which types are in service.
At its peak, the airline operated a fleet of 120 aircraft, but a number of lessors have moved to deregister aircraft leased to Jet, as the first step in repossessing them and moving them to other operators.
DAE Capital is the latest lessor to file requests to deregister six Boeing 737-800s operated by Jet Airways, records from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) show. Cirium’s Fleets Analyzer shows that the six jets are all around nine years old.
The DGCA shows that there are 12 jets now pending deregistration, with 24 others now completed.
Jet’s bankers, which took control of the airline in late March, recently closed an expression of interest process seeking proposals for a new investor to take a controlling stake in the airline.
The qualifying parties from that process are expected to be announced soon and will then have until 30 April to submit binding offers.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
