Jet Airways struggles to stay alive as 90% of the fleet grounded

I haven't written about the Jet Airways mess yet, and I'm sorry. I'm not sure why, but it has just been so involved and constantly changing that I felt I couldn't do it justice. However, something is better than nothing.

Jet Airways has long been considered the "premium" Indian long-haul airline, and for many, the airline has chosen Air India. The airline had an investment from Etihad, and my flights on them have been good.

Jet Airways 777 first class

Unfortunately, the conditions on the airline have been significantly reduced. The airline has been looking for investors but has not succeeded. As a result, Jet Airways has not been able to pay its bills.

The company has racked up over $ 1 billion in debt and has missed employee, fuel and even airline payments. At the beginning of the year, Jet Airways had over 120 aircraft, while now they are down to just over a dozen aircraft, so their fleet has shrunk by nearly 90%.

To put into perspective just how bad things are, here's a Flightradar24 graphic that shows the number of aircraft the airline has flat a year ago, six months ago, three months ago, a month ago, for a week since, and now. Ouch.

The active Jet Airways fleet:

1 year ago
6 months ago
3 months ago
1 month ago
1 week ago
Well

Flightradar24 data for Jet Airways: https://t.co/8jSxHLCwQn pic.twitter.com/IviG3w40eE

– Flightradar24 (@ flightradar24) April 11, 2019

Yesterday, the airline was constantly forced to lose all international flights, due to Indian regulations that require minimum aircraft to operate overseas aircraft.

Creditors have given the airline today for potential buyers to declare their interest in buying a controlling stake in Jet Airways. There have been many types of rumors about which companies may be interested. Etihad has been thrown around, but even airlines such as Air Canada are apparently interested, which I find very unlikely.

Jet Airways & business 39

All this comes in the middle of elections in India, where the country agrees with a prime minister, who undoubtedly increases the efforts in all this, given what a big company Jet Airways is (or at least was).

This is a situation worth seeing in the coming days. Either the airline will get an investment outside, they will be bailed out by the government, or they may even go out of business altogether. Things do not look good