Jet Airways gets nod for flights to Milan

The ministry of civil aviation has approved a proposal by Jet Airways (India) Ltd to fly to Milan in Italy and has also given its permission for the carrier to increase its frequency of flights to short-haul international destinations such as Dubai, Bangkok and Colombo from various Indian cities, said two senior civil aviation ministry officials familiar with the development. “We had approved the proposal of Jet Airways to fly to Milan in addition to Dubai, Bangkok and Colombo. The carrier may start its operations by next month or so,” said one of the officials. Both ministry officials declined to be identified. This approval last week will allow Jet Airways to access the largely untapped India-Italy market, which is currently served through indirect connections. Mounting losses had forced Italian government owned Alitalia, run by Linee Aeree Italiane SpA, to withdraw from the Indian market in March 2008. Besides Milan, Jet Airways will now also consider flying to other European destinations, said a senior Jet executive, marking the lifting of a freeze India’s largest airline by passengers carried had imposed on long haul route expansion following the financial crisis of 2008. A spokesperson for Jet Airways declined to comment on the developments. Jet Airways launched international flights in 2004 and expanded aggressively on long haul routes, but imposed a moratorium of new long-haul international flights in November 2008 after a credit crunch and economic slowdown in the wake of the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. in September 2008. As a part of resuming its long-distance route expansion, Jet Airways had applied for permission to fly to other international routes including Mexico and Paris. “Though Jet Airways had applied for many other routes, mainly in Europe, we have not considered (them) at this time. We had to be very cautious considering the health of airline industry,” a ministry official said, adding that these may be considered at a later date. Apart from the proposed Milan flights, Jet Airways launched a long-haul flight between Johannesburg and Mumbai beginning 14 April, ahead of the 11 June start of the soccer World Cup in South Africa. Rashesh Shah, an analyst at domestic brokerage ICICI Securities Ltd, said there is a strong and healthy demand growth of passengers in Europe though there is competition. “Despite a slowing economy, European flights should augur well for Jet Airways. Colombo flights are also likely to do well because of the current mismatch of demand and supply,” Shah said, but cautioned that it would likely face competition on sectors such as Dubai and Bangkok from Emirates and Air- Asia Bhd. However, Jet Airways, which currently operates 90 aircraft connecting international destinations, does not plan to add to its fleet even as it adds international destinations. “We are not looking to add further capacity in terms of aircraft,” said K.G. Vishwanath, vice-president for commercial strategy and investor relations at Jet Airways, had told an analysts’ conference on 26 July. “What you might see is some improvement in utilization by operating Boeing 737 routes or even on the wide-body route to the extent (that) we are able to find some network spaces at this point in time. But no further aircraft addition is planned in the international business,” he said at the time.

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The above article was extracted from Skyline updates of Skyline College. Skyline College is amongst the top MBA and BBA institutes in Delhi, Gurgaon (NCR).