DGCA Monitoring Jet's Schedule After Flight Cancellations

Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is monitoring the flight schedule of Jet Airways, after the airline cancelled a number of flights, owing to grounding of aircraft.

According to a senior official, the airline has been asked if it is able to maintain its flight schedule.

On its part, a Jet Airways spokesperson said that the airline has reinstated three aircraft into its fleet post the engine normalisation exercise.

The airline had cancelled over 10 flights on Wednesday a day after four aircraft were grounded. The interim grounding of the four Boeing 737 aircraft had led to 19 flight cancellations on Tuesday.

However, the number of cancellations was lower due to optimised flight rotation and fleet management.

Speculation is rife that the aircraft were grounded for non-payment of dues to lessors and lack of spares.

The airline on Wednesday denied this, stating that operational and fleet maintenance reasons were behind the grounds, which it said were of temporary nature. Jet currently has over 120 aircraft.

"The cancellations were necessitated due to a scheduled termination of an aircraft lease and to carry out an engine normalisation exercise. The aircraft temporarily grounded for the engine normalisation exercise are therefore expected to rejoin the scheduled operations on Friday, February 1, 2019," a company spokesperson said on Wednesday.

"The company is actively engaged with all its aircraft lessors, and has been regularly providing updates on the efforts undertaken by the company to improve its liquidity."

Recently, Jet Airways has been in a tight spot financially as a rescue plan is being stitched between its partner Etihad and a consortium of banks.

The airline has a loan burden of over Rs 8,000 crore and it could see some of that amount being converted into equity by the banks.

In a stock exchange filing on Monday, Jet Airways said an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) of the company would be held on February 21.

It said a special resolution would be put forth at the EGM to consider and "to approve conversion of loan into shares or convertible instruments or other securities".