The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has de-registered seven Boeing 737-800 aircraft of Jet Airways. The development comes a day after lessors to the airline approached India's civil aviation regulator with the request. The move will allow them to take the planes out of the country and lease it to any other airline.
Making the announcement, the DGCA on its website said that seven de-registered Boeing aircraft belong to lessors such as Crolly Aviation, Dungarvan Aircraft Leasing, Mardal Aviation, Allenwood Aircraft Leasing, Elphin Aircraft Leasing, Ballyhaunis Aircraft Leasing, and Carlow Aircraft Leasing.
All aforementioned seven companies are based out of Dublin in Ireland. They had put in the IDERA (irrevocable deregistration and export request authorisations) requests with the DGCA on and around April 3.
The cash-strapped Jet Airways has a fleet of about 119 aircraft but only 26 of them are flying ‘currently’, said Civil Aviation Secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola.
The aviation regulator also showed on its website that lessors have put in IDERA requests to de-register 24 other aircraft, which were leased to Jet Airways.
Once the lessor puts in the IDERA request for an aircraft, the DGCA checks if that plane has any pending dues with any airport, oil companies, etc. Once it is established that plane has no pending dues, the de-registration is permitted. The lessor can then take the plane out of the country and lease it to any other airline company.
Meanwhile, a Mumbai-bound Jet Airways flight was on Wednesday stopped at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam over non-payment of pending bills. The flight, stopped by an European cargo company, has now been delayed by over six hours. The aircraft had flown to Amsterdam from Mumbai Tuesday and was scheduled to return Thursday.
"The cargo agent seized Boeing 777-300 ER (VT-JEW) of Jet Airways at the Amsterdam airport as the airline could not clear his dues," the airline source told PTI Wednesday.
Confirming the same, the airline in a statement said: "Jet Airways’ flight 9W 231 AMS BOM of 10th April 2019, has been delayed due to operational reasons. Guests have been informed of same and have been taken care of and served with refreshments during their wait. The airline will further update guests with revised timings."