One of India's major airlines, Jet Airways, has announced it is temporarily halting flight operations on Wednesday after the carrier failed to secure the "critical interim funding" necessary for the company to remain afloat. "With immediate effect, we are compelled to cancel all our global and domestic flights".
Jet Airways might take its last flight at 10:30 PM tonight, according to media reports.
Referring to his offer to repay 100 per cent of his loans to Indian banks and government, Mallya said, "I invested hugely into Kingfisher which rapidly grew to become India's largest and most awarded airline".
Jet CEO Vinay Dube said on Tuesday in a letter to employees, seen by Reuters, that the carrier had stressed to its lenders the need for some urgent funding, critical to the continuation of its operations. "The company's leadership, in consultation with its board of directors, is engaged with lenders in connection with the said emergency funding request to arrest further deterioration of its services".
The airline will wait for the bidding process being conducted by a State Bank of India-led consortium of banks to conclude before it takes a decision on the future of the airline, Jet Airways said in a statement.
With the rescue package for the cash strapped airline still elusive and the suspension of It's global operations most likely to continue even after April 18, Jet has started to book tickets for its passengers on other airlines.
Jet Airways, the Mumbai-headquartered airline, will be suspending operations from today, April 17, 2019, on a temporary basis.
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Separately, an Indian government official said funding was likely to come through and that the banks were not looking to take Jet to bankruptcy court.
"Finding new investors was always going to be a tall order for Jet Airways", said Loizos Heracleous, an aviation expert at Warwick Business School in Britain. The airline, once India's leading private carrier, has been forced in recent months to cancel hundreds of flights to dozens of domestic and overseas destinations.
At its peak, Jet operated more than 120 planes and well over 600 daily flights.
Jet Airways will now await the bid finalisation process by SBI and the consortium of Indian Lenders. "We are actively working to try and ensure that the bid process leads to a viable solution for the company".
India's aviation regulator said on its website on Wednesday that lessors had applied to deregister another four Boeing 737 planes.
Pilots, engineers, and ground staff have not been paid for months, and passengers have been left stranded around the world as a result of cancellations.
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