Jet in talks with Gulf, Oman Air for dry lease

Mumbai: Jet Airways has initiated fresh talks with Bahrain's national carrier Gulf Air and Oman Air to convert wet lease agreements into dry lease for the four Boeing 777s and two Airbus 330s respectively.
The wet lease agreement with Gulf and Oman Air will end in October and November of the current calendar year. Wet lease refers to an agreement under which aircraft is leased with crew, insurance etc, whereas under dry lease, just the aircraft is leased out.
Fresh talks for dry lease between Jet and Gulf started only last month. Local reports said Gulf Air earlier decided not to pursue the dry lease option with Jet for the foreseeable future. Gulf Air said in February it had agreed to lease four Boeing 777s as part of its efforts to replace its fleet.
Jet Airways chief executive office Wolfgang Prock-Schaeur confirmed the development to ET and said: “The company is in talks with carriers to convert them into dry lease as the wet lease agreements will expire at October and November end.”
Jet Airways, which has a debt of $3.1-billion and standalone net loss of Rs 402 crore for the full-year ended March 2009, is considering leasing some more planes used primarily for domestic operations (B737-800s).
Rising cost of aviation turbine fuel and reduction in demand due to global economic meltdown have led Jet to cut several routes rendering these aircraft surplus. Currently, it has leased out total nine of its aircraft to Gulf, Oman and Turkish Airlines. With Turkish, it has two A330s wet leased for two months followed by a dry lease of two years.
The management said the company would be earning $2 million per asset per month on a wet lease and $1 million per asset per month on a dry lease.
02/06/09 Mithun Roy/Economic Times

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Categories: Foreign Jun 2009, Jet Airways Jun 2009