INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Jet airways news: Jet Airways has been forced to shrink its operating fleet due to financial troubles.The 2019 summer holiday travel season
is expected to be marred by high air fares as debt-ridden Jet Airways gradually truncates flight operations, experts said
Even though the airline, lenders and the government are still hopeful of a revival, the current trend might see Jet operating a bare minimum
fleet, thus bumping up air fares."The grounding of aircraft due to liquidity issues with Jet Airways and regulatory directive for the
grounding of B737 Max aircraft have resulted in 15 per cent impact on the industry capacity," said Kinjal Shah, vice president, corporate
Furthermore, it has resulted in a significant increase in fares
120 aircraft is left with just 16 in its fleet
Last Friday it operated 11 aircraft.The airline has currently suspended international operations till the weekend
It has also cancelled domestic flights, leaving passengers stranded at various airports
This led even the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to assess Jet Airways' financial situation."With Jet now cancelling international flights,
the rising fare situation is set to get worse if capacity is not increased before peak summer travel season," said Aloke Bajpai, CEO and
from Delhi have increased by 19 per cent and fares for flights from Mumbai are up by 36 per cent
Passengers who are planning their summer leisure travel will also be impacted due to availability of seats."According to Sharat Dhall, COO
(B2C), Yatra.com said: "With the peak travel season having kicked off, we expect airlines to induct more aircrafts to tap into the increased
demand on the key business and leisure routes.""This will also result in a rationalisation of airfares and we expect them to increase only
fill the demand-supply gap and that is keeping fares under control.""It is only the last-minute fares that are seeing a jump
So it is unlikely to impact the summer vacation travel season as most leisure travellers book well in advance and will not be impacted."The
trend of high air fares that was triggered due to Jet's truncation of its operations was amplified by oil marketing companies, as they
increased the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF).Since March 14, passengers had to shell out high fares as several more flights were
cancelled due to grounding of Boeing 737-MAX aircraft.Culmination of these factors are expected to decelerate the growth of air passenger
traffic in the country.In a recent note, ratings agency Fitch said that Indian aviation market has seen a sharp increase in air fares in the
passenger kilometres (RPK), which decelerated to 12.4 per cent in January (2018: 19.9 per cent), to weaken further until supply increases,"
the rating agency said in a note.In addition, the note said that Jet Airways, which along with its subsidiary JetLite, had the
second-largest share of the domestic market until January, has been steadily losing market share as it has been forced to shrink its
operating fleet due to financial troubles.Get the latest election news, live updates and election schedule for Lok Sabha Elections 2019 on
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