Now Fly High With Cheaper Fares: Relief For Flyers As Jet Starts Clearing Dues, SpiceJet To Lease Grounded Aircraft

As Jet Airways is looking to use interim funds received by lenders to partly clear its dues to lessors and pay salary arrears to pilots and other employees, airfares which have been soaring in the last several weeks are all set to stabilise, reports Mint.

Moreover, the fact that Jet will be able to restore part of its fleet and that SpiceJet will be leasing a few of the former’s grounded planes is likely to reverse the aviation industry’s recent reduction in capacity.

Even as air passenger traffic was up 7 per cent year-on-year for the January-February period, capacity utilisation of nine domestic airlines passed 80 per cent, which means that a point of saturation is being reached as far as capacity utilisation is concerned.

Due to a spiralling debt crisis, Jet was down to flying only 34 of its fleet of 119 aircraft. On top of that, the recent suspension of Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft by the DGCA also played a role in restricting the supply of seats in the Indian aviation market.

Key routes such as Delhi-Mumbai saw ticket prices rise up by close to 23 per cent in just two weeks, a sign of the depressed supply of flights. Things are set to normalise, however, as more aircraft are pressed into action.