Cash-strapped Jet Airways has cancelled all international flights until 15 April, raising doubts about its survival over the next few days. The flights to Amsterdam, Paris and London, among others, have been cancelled. In addition, the airline continues to cancel more domestic flights.
As of this Thursday, the airline is operating only about 14 aircraft (7 Boeing 777s, one Airbus A330, 3 Boeing 737s and 3 ATRs), down from 26 last week (and 123 at the height of its operations), and this is the major reason for the suspension of its international operations. Indeed, as per Indian rules, an airline needs to have a minimum of 20 aircraft to be eligible to operate international flights. A severe liquidity crisis resulted in the grounding of several of its aircraft, the airline being unable to pay for the leases.
Until recently, Jet Airways operated 26 aircraft (Airbus A330s, Boeing 777s, 737-800 and ATRs) to various destinations like London, New York, Toronto, Singapore, Amsterdam, Paris, Bangkok and several domestic routes like Mumbai-Delhi, among others.
Indian aviation regulator DGCA announced it de-registered seven Boeing 737-800 aircraft of Jet Airways on Wednesday, allowing its lessors to take the planes out of the country so that it can be leased to any other airline.
