Jet cuts international routes, plans leasing aircraft

New Delhi, Feb 18 (PTI) Amid difficult times for the
aviation industry, India's Jet Airways has cut three of its
biggest loss-making international routes and plans to lease
four wide-body Boeing 777 aircraft, besides phasing out three
Boeing 737 planes.

The carrier, which has been overtaken last month by
Kingfisher as the largest airline, discontinued the
Amritsar-London-Amritsar route in December,
Bombay-Shanghai-San Francisco and Bangalore-Brussels sectors
in January as part of its network rationalisation exercise.

"These were the highest loss-making routes. This will,
therefore, help us reduce losses further in the next few
quarters," Jet Airways CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schaeur told
investors.

Commenting on the fleet rationalisation programme
undertaken by the company for the ongoing quarter, he said:
"We will lease out another Boeing 777 aircraft, this is
aircraft number three (third to be leased out) to Turkish
Airlines. Starting April, the plans are to lease out four more
Boeing 777.

"In addition we will be phasing out our three Boeing 737
classic aircraft, whose leases expire in Q4 of FY 2009, and
not replace them."

In December, Jet had leased out two Airbus A330 aircraft
to Gulf Air and another two Boeing 777s on wet lease to
Turkish Airlines.

The carrier had recently announced plans to give two
Airbus A 330-200 aircraft to Oman Air on wet lease for a
period of six months, with effect from May, under its route
rationalisation and cost-cutting exercise.

Prock-Schaeur also said the carrier has "rightsized its
capacity on the North American routes for which it will only
use Airbus A330 planes".

In its third quarter results, Jet had said its
international routes had incurred a loss of Rs 119.1 crore in
the quarter ended December 31, 2008, against a loss of Rs
115.9 crore in the same period last fiscal. PTI