Jet 2.0: Turbulence Ahead

When the National Company Law Tribunal approved the revival of the erstwhile Jet Airways, a new chapter in India’s aviation sector got scripted. But will the airline fly again?

- ANSHUL DHAMIJA

“I WOULD SUBSCRIBE to the view that it’s an aborted mission,” says Jitender Bhargava, the former executive director of Air India, on the ongoing revival efforts of grounded legacy airline Jet Airways. Even as the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has given its nod to the revival of the airline by the U.K.based Kalrock Capital and U.A.E.based entrepreneur Murari Lal Jalan, naysayers and aviation analysts agree that the NCLT ruling can’t be viewed as Jet 2.0 being ready for a second take-off. “It’s probably months before anything happens,” says Harish H.V., managing partner at ECube Investment Advisors, an environmental, social, and governance fund.

However, the NCLT ruling paves the way for the first Indian airline to be resurrected from closure under the new bankruptcy law, after over a dozen airlines have fallen by the wayside since the early 1990s. In June this year, the Mumbai bench of the NCLT approved the ₹1,375-crore revival plan for Jet Airways that was submitted by Kalrock and Jalan, both of whom aren’t known in the aviation industry. The revival plan includes payments of ₹380 crores to financial creditors, ₹52 crores to employees and workmen, and ₹10 crores to operational creditors.