British Airways Increases Mumbai Capacity Amid Jet Airways Collapse

British Airways are increasing their capacity on their Heathrow to Mumbai service, saying that it is in response to ‘increased customer demand’. With Jet Airways grounded, there are around 21 flights a week fewer between India and London than there used to be
Overall, their service to Mumbai will increase from 14 flights per week to 18 per week as a result. Reservations for these flights are already open, with the additional capacity scheduled through to 26th October 2019.
Speaking to the Independent, a BA spokesperson said:

“We regularly review our extensive global network and make changes to the schedules where necessary. We’ll be increasing our Mumbai service from 14 to 18 flights a week due to increased customer demand”

Previously, Jet Airways flew to London Heathrow twice a day from Mumbai and once daily from New Delhi.
30/05/19 Joanna Bailey/Simple Flying

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In fresh blow for Jet Airways staff, group medical policy expires

Mumbai: Struggling without a salary for the last two to four months, employees of Jet Airways received some more bad news on Tuesday — the company’s group medical policy has lapsed due to non-payment of premium.
This means the temporarily grounded airline’s 22,000-odd employees will have to rely on their own health insurance in case of a medical emergency in the family.
In a communication to employees, Rahul Taneja, Chief People Officer, said: “In the absence of any emergency funding from the lenders, we find ourselves facing a situation where we are not able to fund the premium of our Group Mediclaim Policy. The policy lapses on the midnight of April 30, 2019. These circumstances are not of our doing...”
According to sources, on Tuesday, a loader with Jet attempted suicide in Nagpur. Last week, a 45-year-old employee allegedly committed suicide. The employee, a cancer patient, was under stress due to mounting medical bills.
30/04/19 Forun Gandhi/Business Line

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Jet Airways fiasco: India’s forex kitty hit as Qatar, British Airways, Etihad take international slots

The Jet Airways crisis has not just left a void in the Indian aviation industry but is also costing India its forex, President of Engineering Union of Jet Airways told Financial Express Online. While the domestic slots of the airline have been given to rival SpiceJet and Air India and IndiGo, its international slots have been taken up by international airlines such as Qatar and British Airways, resulting in a considerable loss to India’s forex inflows.

Jet Airways has served the international skies for 14 years from 2005 to 2019. “We used to have daily flights to London, Manchester, Singapore, Hong Kong, Paris. Who is coming up now to take these slots? Emirates, Qatar, Cathay Pacific, British Airways etc. Indian airlines have got the domestic slots but what about international slots?” Ashish Mohati, President of JAMEWA (Jet Aircraft Maintenance Engineer’s Welfare Association) told Financial Express Online.

In India, Air India and Jet Airways had the major share of international routes. With Jet grounding, British Airways has jumped to make the most of it. “British Airways immediately stopped its flight to London and Johannesburg and now is flying more aircraft to India to cater to our passengers [Jet Airways]. Who is getting the forex money, we are losing forex money,” he added.
Also, in the Middle East, India’s 90 per cent of the expatriates are working there. “Jet Airways was the biggest flyer to the Middle East. These people are now taking Qatar and Emirates. Who is making the money then?” Ashish Mohati said. “The real financial loss is to the government of India,” he added.
29/04/19 Prachi Gupta/Financial Express

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Jet Airways pilots write to PMO, seek probe into allegations of conspiracy

Mumbai: National Aviators Guild (NAG) — the pilot body of Jet Airways — has written to the Prime Minister’s Office, seeking a probe into Subramaniam Swamy’s allegations of conspiracy that has delayed the resolution of the airline’s debt.
Last week, in a letter to the Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu, Swamy, Member of Parliament, had alleged, “There is a serious effort by private airlines such as Spicejet and Vistara to benefit from this dismemberment of Jet Airways. This is being supported by some of your colleagues and officers whom I can name in a private meeting with you.”
NAG, in an email to the Prime Minister, stated,“We urge you to kindly intervene in the matter and order a probe to establish whether a larger conspiracy was at play, or of any collusion between SBI and Etihad, as the only one decimated here, has been the employees and Jet Airways at large.”
The union urged to preserve and maintain the slots, bilaterals and stop further de-registration of aircraft and re-registration to the competitors. Jet Airways’ several slots have been temporarily given to other airlines, including Indigo, Spicejet and Vistara. The pilots’ body said that even a temporary issue of slots to rival airlines will mar the future of Jet Airways.
28/04/19 Forum Gandhi/Business Line

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Who failed Jet Airways’ 20,000 employees—owners or banks?

On April 26, Shailesh Singh (52), who was undergoing cancer treatment, died after falling off a building in Mumbai’s Nalasopara. Police suspect Singh, who worked with Jet Airways as a technician for about 23 years and was on leave without pay for over a year due to his ailment, committed suicide. According to Singh’s family, he was suffering from severe depression due to his treatment. His savings had drained and his only other hope, his son, was also caught in financial trouble as he is also employed with the now-grounded Jet.

This is the story of just one of the thousands of families battling financial troubles due to the grounding of Jet, even as the airline’s leadership is busy passing the blame on lenders for not releasing funds for salaries.
Read the Quartz report in full >>

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Jet Airways - Hanging by a thread

Everybody has an opinion on Jet Airways. It doesn't cost anything to have one, and that's why everyone - from an anxious working professional to a pseudo-evangelist industrialist to an attention-seeking politician - is offering free opinions on Jet's problems. Their concern in saving the grounded airline is common; their methods to rescue are different though.
Read more on those methods on Business Today >>

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Jet Airways staff promise to secure Rs 3,000 crore, seek SBI nod to bid

New Delhi: Sensing that the options to revive the grounded Jet Airways are fast running out, a group of airline employees has written to SBINSE 2.06 % seeking permission to allow a consortium of employees and external investors to bid for the company's management control.
The employee representatives have said they will secure an investment of up to Rs 3,000 crore from "outside investors".
The associations that have sent the proposal are the Society for Welfare of Indian Pilots (SWIP) and the Jet Aircraft Maintenance Engineers Welfare Association (JAMEWA).
The associations have promised that employees would contribute towards revival of the airline from their future earnings and increased productivity.
"As per our initial estimate, the contribution of employee group over a hypothetical 5-year Employee Stock Ownership Programme (ESOP) is likely to be upward of Rs 4,000 crore," a joint letter to the SBI Chairman stated.
They said that the decision had been taken through extensive discussion with various employee groups across the company and also with colleagues who have in the past successfully held senior management positions.
"We recognize that legacy issues of high operating costs, overstaffing, unfavourable vendor/lease agreements and adverse debt/equity ratio are involved," the proposal letter said.
29/04/19 IANS/Economic Times

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Jet Airways discontinues its mobile phone connections

Mumbai: Owing to accute cash crunch, Jet Airways has decided to immediately discontinue all cell phone connections which were allotted to the company for use by its officials.

In case some employee wants to retain the number she/he will have to clear all the pending bills and pay for future usage after transfer of the connection to personal name.

“With the current situation and the fact that payments to mobile phone providers is outstanding, it has been decided to discontinue the connections that are in the name of Jet Airways (I) Ltd and being used by team members with immediate effect,” Jet Airways said in a communication to employees on Sunday.

“Accordingly we would advise those of you that need to retain the connections, to have these transferred to your personal names, support for which will be given from our end,” the company said.
28/04/19 Lalatendu Mishra/The Hindu

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Why Jet’s fall isn’t good news for rivals

The temporary shutdown of Jet Airways may have enabled other airlines to raise their fares because of the gap in demand and capacity, seize premium slots at the Mumbai and Delhi airports, and operate more flights on the most-profitable routes.

But uncertainty surrounding Jet Airways’s fate is no cause for celebration for its competitors, and poses several challenges.

See why >>

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Vistara may induct some of Jet's Boeing 737s in its fleet

New Delhi: Full-service Vistara could soon induct some of Jet Airways' repossessed Boeing 737s in its fleet. It is learnt to have interviewed a few B737 pilots of Jet Airways and offered to take them on board. The Tata Group-Singapore Airlines JV full service currently has Airbus A320 in its narrow body fleet and for wide body, it has placed firm order for six Boeing 787 Dreamliner 787-9 and has four of them on option.
When asked if it is taking some of ex-Jet Boeing 737 NGs in its fleet, a Vistara spokesperson said: "The recent reduction in capacity has inconvenienced travellers especially in the full-service segment. We will continue to grow our network to meet the market demand."
So far only the Air India Group had had a mix of narrow body from both Airbus (A320s used by AI-domestic) and Boeing 737s (used by AI Express). If it inducts B737s, Vistara will be the only other Indian airline with a mix fleet of narrow body Boeing and Airbus planes.
28/04/19 Saurabh Sinha/Times of India

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Jet Airways crisis signals another big scam after 20,000 employees suffer as govt plays games

Subramanian Swamy, the self-appointed conscience-keeper of the RSS who simultaneously maintains very powerful American connections and corporate links, has a remarkable knack for dropping unexpected bombshells at the right moments.

He exploded one on 21 April 2019 in the context of the ongoing Jet Airways crisis when he tweeted: “Government better be careful: Two Ministers are manipulating sale of Jet Airways spoils to SpiceJet whose real owners I will reveal later. Only above-board option GoI has is amalgam of Jet with Air India since Bilaterals on airspace involves Govt”. It is well-known in media circles that Swamy was referring to the takeover attempt of the SpiceJet man Ajay Singh who coined the slogan Abki baar Modi Sarkar in 2014!
Read in full what B Sivaraman/IPA has to say >>

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Why Jet Airways Crisis Seems Like a Case of Crony Capitalism

Amid the din of elections, the turmoil at Jet Airways and fallout after the suspension of services has not managed to attract a lot of attention. During this, two major developments have taken place which make this whole crisis seem like a case of crony capitalism. Senior BJP leader Subramanian Swamy wrote a letter to the Union Civil Minister Suresh Prabhu, and, then tweeted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi that two BJP leaders want to hand over Jet's business to SpiceJet.
Another thing to observe is Indigo and Tata Vistara's letter to the government. They have alleged that there's no level-playing field in the government's allotment of Jet Airways slots (the slots that have come up for grabs after Jet's supension). It is also in violation of the 2003 guidelines, they have written.

When we talk about rules and regulations of businesses and policies in the country, let's see what happened to those in the Jet saga. Let us also note who are the main players in this episode and what happened to them:

Naresh Goyal's story is over. Many arguments are being given for this downfall, such as airline business has become expensive, rising fuel prices, that he had taken many loans and was running a pricey operation. Now, we can deduce that basically, he wasn't trying to save his business, he was only trying to save himself and leave.

When trouble increased, the SBI said they will get new bidders. They said they will get investors and if needed, will also pump in Rs 1,000-1,500 crore, but only if the airline gives some security. How could a falling airline have provided security?
28/04/19 Quint

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The Jet case study: What exactly happens when an airline drowns

As the dust settles after Jet's crashlanding, the extent of the toll the fiasco has taken on the airline and beyond is now becoming clear.
Here's a look at the aftermath of Jet's sinking, and how it has impacted jobs, business and other associated areas >>

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Aviator's body urges PM to direct SBI to release one month's salary of Jet employees

The National Aviator's Guild (NAG), which represents pilots of the grounded carrier Jet Airways, Saturday requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "direct" the airline's lender State Bank of India to release one month's salary of all the employees.

In a late evening e-mail to the prime minister, the guild also sought government's directive to "stop de-registration" of the airline's aircraft, which are now being leased by other domestic carriers.

"We urge you to direct SBI to release a month's salary to all employees on an urgent and humane basis. We don't want to see a repeat of the human tragedy which unfolded post the Kingfisher Airlines demise," said NAG president Karan Chopra in the e-mail.
Thousands of employees of Kingfisher lost over eight months' salary after the airline went bust in October 2012.The guild also sought to expedite the binding bid date for the Jet Airways stake to "preserve" enterprise value of the airline.
28/04/19 PTI/DNA

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SpiceJet Business Class: Will it work?

As a consequence of the slots of Jet Airways being emptied out, SpiceJet has now mounted a full-scale expansion to take over as many of these empty domestic and international slots as it can to replace the Jet Airways capacity with its own. One of the by-product of this urgent induction of capacity has been that SpiceJet has not had the ability to reconfigure these aircraft with their standard all-economy seating, and paint these aircraft with their own colours. So, you will now witness Jet Airways planes with a SpiceJet sticker on top of them flying around the country and abroad in the coming days.

For the moment, these business class seats are being sold as SpiceMax seats, but over the longer term, SpiceJet is planning to use these hand me down aircraft to launch SpiceJet Business Class operations. There is no indication of the pricing of the business class seats, but that should come around next week as well.

Business Class in a no-frills carrier. Do you think that works?
Read what Ajay Awtaney says in his analysis >>

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Jet Airways employees call off protest in Mumbai

Jet Airways employees who were supposed to have a silent protest outside the Prime Minister's rally venue in Mumbai have now cancelled it. They were not allowed to do it because the Model code of conduct is in place.
See video >>

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As Jet Airways Confusion Continues, Travel Agents Stuck Paying Refunds

Chandigarh: When debt-strapped Jet Airways suspended all its operations last week, thousands of employees were left wondering how they would survive and stranded passengers had to scramble around for other options.

Add to the category of sufferers private travel agents, who have been forced to pay angry customers themselves after their ticket refunds, adding up to crores, have been held up indefinitely after the International Air Transport Association (IATA) suspended the airline’s membership on 18 April. The aggrieved agents say the airline worsened the problem by accepting bookings right till the day its membership was suspended by IATA.
After it suspended all the ticket bookings and transactions of the cash-stripped airways, IATA asked its accredited travel agents to submit their refund claims through its global distribution system tool, the Billing and Settlement Plan (BSP). However, it has not guaranteed a full refund to the agents, who are now being forced to shell out money from their own pockets to customers.
Albert Tjoeng, IATA’s assistant director of corporate communications (Asia Pacific), told HuffPost India that accredited travel agents have been asked to submit their claims for refund through the BSP link system between April 23 and May 20.
“Each individual claim will then be need to be reviewed by Jet Airways, which will approve the amount that qualifies to be refunded (which may not be the same as the claim submitted). As the refund claim submission process is underway, we do not have visibility of the total claim amount,” said Tjoeng, adding that the entire process is expected to take a couple of months.
26/04/19 Rachna Khaira/Huffington Post

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Jet Airways employee commits suicide in Maharashtra's Palghar

Mumbai: A senior technician with Jet Airways allegedly committed suicide in Maharashtra's Palghar district due to depression as he was suffering from cancer, police said on Saturday.
Shailesh Singh (45) jumped off the terrace of his four-storeyed building in Nalasopara East on Friday afternoon, an official said.
As per functionaries of Jet Airways Staff and Employees Association, however, Singh was facing "financial constraints" as employees of the grounded airline have not got salaries for a long time.
"He was suffering from cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. Prime facie, it seems he was suffering from depression due to the ailment," the police official added.
It was the first suicide of an employee since the airline suspended operations, these functionaries claimed.
The deceased's son is also working in the operations department of the airline, they added.
27/04/19 PTI/Times of India

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Police start probe after death of Jet Airways employee

Mumbai: A Jet Airways employee allegedly committed suicide at his Nalasopara residence on Friday afternoon. The Tulinj police have initiated inquiries into the incident.

The police said Shailesh Kumar Singh was a senior technician with the ground support department of the airline and was suffering from cancer for the last three years.

“Mr. Singh was being treated at a local hospital and was brought back home around 6 a.m. on Friday. He was complaining of severe pain in the stomach at that time and around 1.30 p.m., he was found to have killed himself,” an officer with the Palghar police said.

The officer added that Mr. Singh was rushed to the Alliance Hospital in Nalasopara where he was declared dead before admission.

The Tulinj police were subsequently informed and a team was sent to make inquiries with his family. The police also visited the Sai Pooja Apartment in Oswal Nagari, where Mr. Singh used to stay, to make enquiries with neighbours.

“No suicide note has been found so far. We have registered an accidental death report in connection with the incident,” Inspector Daniel Ben from Tulinj police station said.

Mr. Singh is survived by his wife, two sons and two daughters. One of his sons is also working in Jet Airways and the recent suspension of operations by the airline, coupled with his father’s long-standing illness, had put severe financial strain on the family, said a source close to the family.
27/04/19 Akanksha Saxena/The Hindu

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Air Serbia to take Jet Airways slots at Heathrow

Etihad Airways will lease seven weekly slot pairs at London Heathrow Airport to Air Serbia. They were previously utilised by the now grounded Indian carrier Jet Airways. The Indian airline, which was until recently the country's second-largest, suspended flights last week under the weight of high debt and a severe cash crunch. Etihad has since taken over some of its slots at one of the world's most congested airports, in London, which it will lease as of tomorrow to Air Serbia for an undisclosed sum. The two partners have submitted a slot swap request form. As a result, Air Serbia is expected to soon add an extra seven weekly services between Belgrade and London Heathrow.

The swap request was submitted yesterday to Airport Coordination Limited, a slot coordination company, and will be in effect until the end of the 2019 summer season on October 26. They include a daily 17.20 arrival into Heathrow and a 19.45 departure. The airline already owns a daily 10.25 arrival and 13.30 departure slot, as well as a two weekly (weekend) 18.10 arrival slot and 18.55 departure. The newly leased slots will be operated under new flight numbers JU388/JU389. A 136-seat Etihad Airways Airbus A320 is expected to be deployed on the service on behalf of Air Serbia.
27/04/19 Ex-Yu Aviation News

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