Jet Airways is hopeful of adding another 40 aircraft to its fleet by April 26 this year.

“By end of April the airline hopes to have 75 aircraft in its fleet, which is almost 80 per cent of (its earlier) capacity,” PS Kharola, Secretary, Civil Aviation, told newspersons after a meeting with Jet Airways’ senior management.

Aggressive target

Vinay Dube, the airline’s Chief Executive Officer, and departmental heads of the finance and operational departments, were present at the meeting.

The Secretary admitted that the target of induction of aircraft, which the airline is planning, is an ‘aggressive target’. The meeting took place a day after a consortium of banks led by State Bank of India agreed to pump in ₹1,500 crore in the cash-strapped airline.

Kharola declined to get into specifics of by when the ₹1,500 crore will start flowing to the company pointing out that the mandate of the Ministry is to ensure that the aircraft flown by Jet Airways are safe and that there is no spike in fares as a result of the present crisis in the airline.

At the meeting, the Jet team informed the Ministry that none of the 35 aircraft it is currently operating will be grounded hence forth.

The airline has had to ground close to 60 aircraft as it has not been able to meet the lease payments for them. Till recently, the airline was operating a fleet of 103 aircraft.

The airline said that it hoped to come to some settlement with the leasing companies by the coming Monday or Tuesday to ensure that the aircraft could still be operated by the airline rather than being repossessed by the leasing company.

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