Jet Airways plans to
increase capacity on international routes by reconfiguring existing aircraft
and adding new ones
|
Jet
Airways will ramp up capacity on international routes through a mix of aircraft
reconfiguration and deployment the Airbus A330-300 planes,
which have about 30 extra seats compared to A330-200. The move will enable Jet
Airways to take on competition on the London and US routes, without increasing
its fleet size.
International operations constitute about
60 per cent of Jet Airways’s revenue. Currently, it operates a mix of Boeing 737s (on
Gulf routes), Airbus A330-200 (to the US, Singapore and Hong Kong) and Boeing
777-300s (to London).
Next month, Jet
will add an Airbus A330-300 on lease, the first of the four such planes, which
will be delivered till next April. Jet Airways has 11 Airbus A330 planes in its
fleet, each seating 220 passengers. The new version will have about 30 extra
seats.
The airline is also reconfiguring five
Boeing 777 planes by adding more seats in the economy section. The economy section
in the Boeing 777 has nine seats in a row and the airline will be adding an
extra seat in each row, making it 10 seats in a row. The reconfiguration
exercise will be complete by January. The airline has leased out its five 777s
to Thai Airways.
Jet Airways posted a consolidated loss of
Rs 166 crore in the second quarter FY13.
Although losses narrowed down from Rs 713
crore in same period last year, the airline continued to bear the brunt of high
operating costs.
In the past few months, it scaled back capacity
and withdrew from loss making sectors such as Johannesburg and New York. In the
second quarter, the load factor on international routes dropped, but yields
improved 28 per cent. However, with the cost structure remaining high, the unit
costs increased 16 per cent. International operations recorded a pre-tax profit
of Rs 45 crore, the airline said in its investor presentation.
Jet Airways will retain the existing fleet
size as it is planning to sell or lease the Airbus A330-200s in its fleet.
The A330-300s will give us better economics
with more seats at almost the same costs. The planes will be deployed on the
India-Brussels-US routes. We are in the process of selling and leasing out the
excess capacity of the Airbus A330-200s,” said Jet’s CEO Nikos Kardassis.
According to Kardassis, the airline is
still to finalise the new routes for the next summer, but sources indicated
that it may deploy the A330-330s on new sectors such as Munich. The airline has
secured the civil aviation ministry’s permission to launch flights to Munich
and Frankfurt, to expand its European network. These flights would help Jet
align itself with German airline Lufthansa with which it proposed a
code-sharing alliance and join the Star Alliance. However, Jet is yet to
receive the government’s nod to join the alliance.
According to Kapil Kaul, CEO - south Asia, Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA), International operations
continue to be Jet’s strength. “The Q2 international results were better than
expectation,” he said. CAPA expects the airline to do code-sharing with
Lufthansa and join the Star Alliance before end of this fiscal year.
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/jet-gameplan-to-get-bigger-shareglobal-passengers/491714/
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