Prince Mathews Thomas Moneycontrol News
Jet Airways will start taking back its grounded fleet from later this week, and 'normalcy' may be restored within two months.
The follows the resignation of founder Naresh Goyal and wife Anita from the company's board, and infusion of Rs 1,500 crore by its lenders.
Owing to default on payments to lessors and for want of spare parts, Jet was forced to ground about 80 of its aircraft. It had a total fleet of 119 aircraft before the crisis started.
"Two to three aircraft are expected to be released daily once the payment is done to the lessors," a senior executive from the airline told Moneycontrol.
Of the grounded aircraft, added the executive, 10 may not come back as these have been taken outside India.
In a statement on March 25, Jet said that it will use the fund infusion from banks to clear dues.
"The airline will leverage the funding to partly clear pending dues towards lessors, vendors, creditors and employees in a phased manner. The move will see Jet Airways re-deploy several of its grounded aircraft back into its network, helping renew many of the routes it had temporarily suspended, which will help restore normalcy of operations...," it said.
Preserved
The aircraft that were among the earliest to be grounded, had been kept in "preserved" form, as per instructions by regulator DGCA.
"It is preserved for keeping the aircraft in long term. Things like seat covers are removed. Now these have to be put back. The whole process takes about 24 hours," said an official.
The grounding of aircraft had led to hundreds of cancellations a day. From an average of 650 flights a day, the company was down to operating just 140.
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