INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
NEW DELHI: The grounding of aircraft by Jet Airways has reduced the availability of seats locally by about a million in the past one month,
per month show that domestic availability reduced by 1.3 million from 14.7 million seats in January to 13.4 million in February, primarily
These aircraft were grounded as a precautionary measure after this aircraft type operated by Lion Air and Ethiopian crashed in the past five
peak, Kingfisher used to operate a fleet of 69 aircraft, which went out of the system
the aviation regulator.
Jet Airways, to date, has grounded 84 aircraft primarily due to non-payment of lease fees to lessors
SpiceJet had to ground 12 Boeing 737 MAX planes
The latest capacity reduction has caused fares to rise, also threatening to halt the double-digit passenger growth in the domestic
this continues, we are looking at a situation where holiday plans of passengers will be impacted badly and the tourism sector will take a
that average fares in the domestic sector have increased by about 35%, but last-minute fares on busy domestic sectors such as Delhi-Mumbai
have gone up between 50% and 100%
The Indian aviation sector is seeing a huge turmoil after a cash crunch hit Jet Airways, which unsuccessfully attempted to cut salaries of
pilots in July last year.
The employees resisted and the airline had to cancel the plan.
The cash crunch led to the airline defaulting on
payments to lessors since October last year and the lessors then started to take back planes leading to flight cancellations starting end
The carrier now operates a fleet of only 35 out of 119 aircraft at its peak
failing which the aircraft is grounded
on condition of anonymity.
