Jet Airways to take flight after three years of being grounded
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The aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has granted Jet Airways the licence to resume commercial flights. The airline was grounded for three years and recently completed the proving flights to attain the air operator certificate (AOC).
The airline had successfully operated five proving flights on May 15 and 17. Jet Airways tweeted the news with a photo of its staff gesturing for takeoff, captioned 'proving flights completed? Check' with a hashtag 'the joy is coming back'.
The airline plans to restart commercial flight operations in July-September 2022. The inaugural flight will be from Delhi to Mumbai. Five weekly flights to Bengaluru and three to Chennai will also be introduced. Three weekly flights to Hyderabad and Jaipur are also in the works.
CEO Sanjiv Kapoor said the aircraft and fleet plan, network, product and customer value proposition, loyalty program, and other details will be unveiled in upcoming weeks. He added that additional senior management appointments will be unveiled next week and hiring for operational roles will also now commence soon. Former staff will get preference.
Current promoter Jalan-Kalrock Consortium said the last of two flights were conducted on Tuesday with 31 people including the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on board. The flights were on Delhi-Hyderabad and Hyderabad-Delhi routes using the carrier's Boeing 737 plane. The first three flights were on Sunday with 18 people on Delhi-Mumbai, Mumbai-Ahmedabad, and Ahmedabad-Delhi routes using the same plane.
Jet Airways had suspended operations in 2019 after the promoters failed to provide liquidity. The insolvency resolution started in June 2019. The last flight was on April 17, 2019. It was India's most successful private airline before the financial crisis.
The airline's Committee of Creditors (CoC) approved the resolution plan submitted by the consortium of the UK's Kalrock Capital and the UAE-based entrepreneur Murari Lal Jalan in October 2020.
