Jet Airways to fly again early next year, eyes over 100 aircraft in 5 yrs

The consortium that took control of grounded carrier Jet Airways announced on Monday that the airline aims to resume domestic operations by the first quarter of 2022. Jet Airways stopped operations in April 2019.

Murari Lal Jalan, the lead member of the Jalan-Kalrock Capital consortium, said in a statement "Jet Airways 2.0 aims at restarting domestic operations by Q1-2022, and short haul international operations by Q3/Q4 2022. Our plan is to have 50+ aircraft in 3 years and 100+ in 5 years which also fits perfectly well with the short-term and long-term business plan of the Consortium." The airline proposes to fly its first service from New Delhi to Mumbai.

Murari Lal Jalan added, "It is the first time in the history of Aviation that an airline grounded for more than 2 years is being revived and we are looking forward to being a part of this historic journey." Murari Lal Jalan is the proposed promoter of Jet Airways.

NCLT had approved the consortium's revival plan for Jet Airway in June.

Captain Sudhir Gaur, the acting CEO of Jet Airways, explained the plans for the airline's main operating hubs. "Jet Airways will continue to have strong and significant presence in Mumbai where it will work from its 'Global One' office in Kurla. Jet Airways also has a state-of-the-art training centre located at Global One, which will be retained and used for in-house training for the Jet Airways team," Gaur said in the statement.

The carrier "will be headquartered in Delhi NCR with its senior management working from the Corporate Office at Gurgaon".

Gaur added, "Jet Airways has already hired 150+ full time employees on its payroll and we are looking to onboard another 1,000+ employees FY 2021-22 across categories."

The carrier will lease a fleet of narrow-body aircraft for domestic operations.