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Jet Airways is likely to participate in the second round of bidding for the regional air connectivity scheme of the government, senior airline officials indicated on Wednesday.
Addressing analysts during a conference call on the airline’s Q1 fiscal 2018 results here on Wednesday, senior airline management officials indicated that the airline will evaluate its participation in the scheme and depending on the economics it will decide on whether to participate in the second round of bidding.
Among those who participated in the call were Vinay Dube, Chief Executive Officer, and Amit Agarwal, Chief Financial Officer.
The airline, which looks at itself as a network carrier, operates the turbo prop ATR aircraft linking tier-II cities to tier-I cities.
Aircraft induction Meanwhile, the airline also announced its plans to induct eight aircraft during the fiscal. Officials indicated that these eight aircraft will be in addition to the firm order for MAX Boeing 737 aircraft which are expected to enter the fleet next year. The airline plans to lease the eight Boeing 737 aircraft and is not considering purchasing these, officials said. The eight additional leases will be from now till the end of the year, of which, one has already come in, officials added.
The Boeing 737 aircraft in the airline’s fleet flies on both domestic and international routes.
The airline is also looking to add flights including operating additional frequencies on the Mumbai-Delhi, Pune-Chennai and Pune-Mumbai sectors, apart from offering connections from Coimbatore to Pune and Kolkata and a new connection from Delhi to Raipur.
On the international side, Jet Airways will focus on Riyadh and Dhaka with additional frequencies from Mumbai and a new frequency from Chennai to Dhaka and from Riyadh to Delhi, officials said.
Officials indicated that since Mumbai, which is its hub is a constrained airport, the airline is enhancing its capabilities and slots between Delhi and Bengaluru by upgrading the aircraft that are being used from these two airports.
Despite feeling that the weakness in the Gulf market is continuing, airline officials indicated that there is no specific route that Jet Airways would like to take out at this juncture as it continues to evaluate all routes and depending on the full year structure will look at pulling out a route. “Short-term optimisation is not the right thing but we continue to optimise continuously,” officials said. The airline operates almost 20 per cent of its international capacity into the Gulf market.
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