Jet Air may lease out more aircraft

Bangalore: Jet Airways is examining the option of leasing out more of its aircraft to foreign airlines, even as the tenure of the wet-leases to Turkish Airlines and Gulf Air will be extended by over two years.
An airline spokesperson told Business Line that at the end of the six-month wet lease agreement for three B777-300ERs with Turkish Airlines, the aircraft will switch to a 25-month dry lease agreement.
In the case of Gulf Air, a 36-month dry lease agreement will follow the six-month wet lease agreement for four B777-400ERs.
Jet Airways, which operates three uber-luxury Boeing 777-300ERs on international routes, will add one more by July. Two of these operate on the Mumbai-London (Heathrow) route and one more on Delhi-London route while another will be used on a rotation basis.
The spokesperson said the expat pilots who fly the wet leased aircraft will be retained with Jet Airways according to the terms of their individual contracts.
Hence, this arrangement was not an attempt to shed expat pilots, the spokesperson said.
The airline is consolidating international operations, involving network-wide route and capacity rationalisation in line with the demand.
It plans to wet lease two Airbus A330-200s to Oman Air for six months. The lease arrangement will bring additional revenues, the spokesperson said.
The airline had said while declaring its third quarter results that it incurred a loss of Rs 119.10 crore during October-December 2008-09 compared with a loss of Rs 115.9 crore during the same quarter in 2007-08.
03/03/09 K. Giriprakash/Business Line

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Categories: Foreign Mar 2009, Jet Airways Mar 2009