Over 10 Flights Cancelled As Jet Airways Grounds 4 Aircraft

Over 10 flights of financially troubled Jet Airways were cancelled on Wednesday a day after four aircraft were grounded.

According to informed sources, the interim grounding of the four Boeing 737 aircraft had led to 19 flight cancellations on Tuesday. However, the number of cancellations on Wednesday 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 has 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.

"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".