Jet Airways to expand international operations

To use cash from Etihad deal to repay debt and buy more planes

Travel News
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Jet Airways’ growth in international operations will outpace its growth on domestic routes after the completion of the deal with Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways, senior officials of the airline said on Monday.

“We are in the process of developing a multi-pronged plan for our international operations,” said Raj Sivakumar, senior vice-president – alliances and planning at Jet Airways. “Effectively this will mean that our capacity on domestic routes will increase 5-6% every year on domestic routes while it will grow at 12% on international routes.”

As part of the network plan post the deal with Etihad, Jet Airways will focus increasingly on international traffic from India. “Out of the total international traffic of 40 million, 28 million are flying to and from the West,” said Sivakumar. “Abu Dhabi will become a key focal point for us in catering to the traffic West of India.” He added that the airline plans on connecting Abu Dhabi to various destinations in India including connecting Tier II cities directly to Abu Dhabi using the narrow-bodied Boeing 737s.

Jet Airways, which posted net loss of Rs 495.53 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2013, said it would continue with its cost-cutting plans and pay off $550 million (about Rs 3,060 crore) of loan next fiscal and bring down its debt to $1.5 million, said K.G. Vishwanath, Vice-President, commercial strategy and investor relations.

“We will have incremental cash of $200 million as a result of the Etihad Airways equity deal. In total, we will be retiring around $500-550 million worth of debt, thereby reducing debt to $1.5 billion by March 2014 as against $2.1 billion as on March 2013,” Vishwanath told analysts at a conference call on Monday. Jet Airways has decided to sell 24 per cent stake to Etihad Airways for Rs 2,058 crore.

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