As Jet Airways suspends operations, lenders suggest ‘best way’ forward for embattled airline's survival

The lenders of Jet Airways are hopeful of the airlines’ survival even as the airline suspended all the flight operations. Suggesting the "best way" forward for the embattled carrier's survival, the lenders expressed hope that the airline will fetch fair bid in a transparent manner.

"The best way forward for the survival of Jet Airways is to get the binding bids from potential investors," news agency PTI quoted the lenders as saying. We hope the bid process is likely to be successful in determining fair value of Jet Airways in a transparent manner, they said.

On Wednesday, in a stock exchange filing, Jet Airways announced that it has decided to temporarily suspend all operations. The last flight (S2 3502) from Amritsar to Mumbai landed at Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) at around 12:20 am on Wednesday night.

Since the March 25 resolution to infuse Rs 1,500 crore into the airline is yet to fructify, the once leading airline has been defaulting on payments, forcing its lessors to retake almost all its planes. At the time of suspension of flight operations, the airline was operating only five planes from 123 aircraft in the fleet till last December. According to sources, the government is maintaining distance from the Jet affairs citing the matter is a commercial decision of banks. 

Jet will be the seventh airline to go down since May 2014 and the 13th one after East West was shuttered. During the past five years airlines like Air Pegasus, Air Costa, Air Carnival, Air Deccan, Air Odisha and Zoom Air have all gone belly up even as the government boasts of double-digits growth for more than four years in tow.