This growth has been achieved through the integration of operational efficiencies network planning, strategic code shares, marketing initiatives and on-time performance, all of which has helped the airline stay a step ahead, said Nikos Kardassis, CEO, Jet Airways.

This demand has set alarm bells ringing in the aviation ministry as it’s the state government’s responsibility to provide connectivity to the upcoming new terminal 3 (T3). “Since the state was not able to provide an additional road link in time for the T3 opening in July, AAI offered to give this alternate route through airport land so that passengers are saved from jams on the single approach road. But AAI is not going to bear the financial burden of this project,” said a senior official. The project is expected to cost Rs 70 crore which the Delhi government has agreed to bear but any cost overrun may have to be borne by central agencies like DDA, but there is no agreement on that yet.

Worried that this latest problem may delay the crucial link to T3, the Delhi International Airport Pvt Ltd (DIAL) has written to the cabinet secretariat’s coordination wing that is looking after Commonwealth issues, including connectivity to IGI. The consortia has sought an urgent meeting of all stakeholders so that the tunnel road gets ready by the due date of September 30.

The ministry and DIAL’s worries stem from the fact that currently traffic to IGI is divided between the diametrically opposite domestic and international terminals. But T3, which will be inaugurated on July 3, will be an integrated domestic-cum-international terminal. International flights will be shifted there on July 14 from the existing international terminal. Domestic flights of Air India (domestic or erstwhile Indian Airlines), Jet, JetLite, Jet Airways Konnect, Kingfisher and Kingfisher Red will also operate to and from T3 from July 31. Only two big domestic carriers — IndiGo and SpiceJet — will operate out of 1D, that’s on the existing domestic side.

“Almost 90% of all fliers in and out of Delhi will be travelling towards the existing international terminal as T3 is right next door. With just the existing link road in front of Radisson, there will be massive jams, especially during peak traffic hours. Ideally, a new link road should have opened along with T3 but the state government did not show the required alertness,” said an official.

Flight 9W 2635 will depart New Delhi at 1015 hrs, arriving in Dehradun at 1115 hrs. Flight 9W 2636 will then depart Dehradun at 1145 hrs, arriving back in New Delhi at 1245 hrs.

According to Mr. Nikos Kardassis, CEO, Jet Airways, “We are delighted to add Dehradun to our network with the introduction of the new daily flights to the city from New Delhi. Besides being the capital of Uttarakhand and a very popular tourist destination, Dehradun is also one of the country’s leading educational centres and as such, there has been growing demand for enhanced air connectivity on this sector. We are confident that our new Jet Airways Konnect service will prove very popular with our guests.”

The airline, bettering its growth figures in November 2009, has reported a 53 per cent surge in domestic and 28 per cent surge in international passenger traffic for December 2009, vis-a-vis the same period last year, Jet Airways said in a statement on Tuesday.

The average seat factor for international operations for December stood at 84.9 per cent, reflecting growing passenger demand on the international sector.

Jet had registered a growth of 33 per cent in domestic and 19 per cent in international passenger traffic in November last year.

Jet Konnect and Jetlite, airlines’ all-economy arm, had registered surge of 23 per cent in passenger traffic at an average seat factor of 81.5 per cent in December last year.

Jet carried about 3,67,246 passengers in December last year compared to 2,86,711 in December 2008 on international sector. The airlines carried 3,25,869 to various international destinations in the month of November last year.

Effective December 23, 2009, Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, will introduce new, direct services on the Dhaka -Mumbai – Dhaka sectors, aboard its state-of-the-

Here is a verbatim transcript of her comments on CNBC-TV18. Also watch the accompanying video.

It comes as a huge relief for Jet Airways the market was waiting for this kind of deleveraging on the balance sheet of Jet Airways.

The CCEA has approved the QIP of Jet Airways for USD 400 million to the tune of about Rs 2000 crore. This was pending for many months. The proposal was struggling for three months on account purely that the Civil Aviation ministry had objected to the breaching of the FDI limit in the company.

On the back of that there was lot of to and fro and negative news had come in as far as their QIP was concerned, and it wasn’t allowed to go through.

The funds that they are planning to use that will be raised will be used to pare off their debt and cash infusion into their latest affair Jet Konnect.

Consolidated debt

As of now their debt-equity ratio is more than 10 times as of FY10. Their consolidated debt is about Rs 14,500 crore as of September’09 out of which Rs 10,300 crore is only the aircraft debt.

That is the kind of debt situation that they are sitting on right now and this equity infusion will come in as a huge relief for the company particularly as far as de-leveraging as far as the balance sheet is concerned.

If you do the math, the total dilution of 15-16% is expected and the holding of the principal promoter Naresh Goyal will shrink from about 80% to 42% post this particular QIP issue.

The current payment obligation that they have in the next quarter is of USD 330 million. Earlier, the FIPB had deferred Jet Airways plans for a long time. This comes as a relief as far as Jet Airways’ cash infusion is concerned.

Also they have other plans to deleverage their balance sheet along with leasing a couple of their aircrafts which will also help them gain some funds.

Airline companies are seeing a whole lot as far as cash flow is concerned and the only Achilles ’ heel for them has been the equity infusion into the company and the debt situation they are currently sitting on. Apart from that the entire demand scenario is picking up, load factors picking up and the cash flow situation is looking quite robust and even prices are seeing an upmove.

Analysts’ views

When we speak to analysts and the experts we get the feeling that the debt is the biggest concern in this sector. Although there is improvement in demand and sporadic movements as far as load factors are concerned, capacity is concerned, this is all very momentary.

So a lot of analysts are still not gung-ho about the position. We just had a brokerage who came out with a report saying although their call on the entire aviation sector was negative and although there is some improvement they are seeing as far as the demand picture is concerned, load factors are concerned, yet they are not quite positive until and unless the debt situation really gets cleaned up in the books of some of these companies like Kingfisher and Spice.

Jet Airways is a big deal for them and only post some of this cleaning up of balance sheet gets done, will they kind of reaffirm and believe more on the growth story for these companies.

A daily service will operate from September 20th, complementing an existing service between Mumbai and Hong Kong.

The inaugural flight will depart Delhi on Wednesday aboard a wide-body Airbus 330-200 aircraft, returning from Hong Kong on October 1st to mark the Chinese National Day, the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

To reflect the number of business travellers on this route, Jet Airways’ Première class, Business Class will offer guests 180-degree flat beds in a unique herringbone configuration that ensures easy aisle access from every seat, along with a flying office capability including laptop power, telephony, SMS, email and live text news.

From September 30th 2009 to October 24th 2009 and from March 28th 2010 to October 30th 2010, flight 9W 72 will depart Delhi at 22:50, arriving in Hong Kong at 07:05.

Flight 9W 71 will then depart Hong Kong at 13:30, arriving in Delhi at 16:50

Mumbai: National carrier Air India, seeking cash infusion as part of a government rescue plan, has decided to cut incentive payments for officers and top managers by as much as half in a cost-cutting measure. The Air India board, which met on Wednesday in Mumbai, said the productivity linked incentive (PLI) would be cut with effect from August and at least 7,000 out of 31,500 employees would be affected. The officers include executive pilots, executive cabin crew and executive engineers. Air India has not taken a decision on the remaining employees.  National Aviation Co. of India Ltd (Nacil) runs state-owned Air India. “The cut, applicable to all officers, including top management personnel in various management disciplines, will range from 25% for those getting PLI of Rs10,000 or less per month, and 50% for those receiving PLI or flying related allowances of Rs2 lakh or more per month,” Air India said in a statement. “The cut for those receiving PLI of Rs10,001 to Rs25,000, Rs25,001 to Rs50,000 and Rs50,001 to Rs2 lakh will be 35%, 40% and 45%, respectively.” Nacil in mid-August proposed slashing the incentive for all employees by 50% as it struggles to come out of its worst crisis. The carrier stands to save at least Rs700 crore a year by cutting the incentives, which account for 30-50% of salaries in Air India. The incentive payments amounted to Rs1,400 crore in 2008-09. With accumulated losses of Rs7,200 crore and borrowings of Rs15,241 crore as of June, up from Rs6,550 crore in November 2007, the cash-strapped carrier had asked for a loan and equity infusion of around Rs15,000 crore from the government. Its current equity capital is Rs145 crore. The majority of the unions have opposed the decision, saying they were not responsible for the trouble the airline is in.  Significantly, this cut is applicable only to non-unionized employees. “There are about 300 executive pilots who had joined the management cadre after gaining five-six years of flying experience. These executive pilots or engineers are not covered by the union,” said a union official who spoke on condition that neither his nor his union’s name be disclosed. “Moreover, the management not clarified that unionised employees are covered under this PLI cut. We will talk to the management tomorrow (Thursday) on this.” On Tuesday night, a spokesman of Air India said that the management has, in the wake of the financial crisis affecting all airlines in India and abroad, taken effective steps to control costs in numerous areas. “With fewer people travelling due to the general economic recession, low fares and poor yields in a market with surplus capacity, there was limited scope for enhancing revenues. The emphasis has, therefore, to be on cost control to bridge the gap between expenditure and income,” he said. Rival carrier Jet Airways (India) Ltd, India’s largest, had implemented a pay cut ranging from 5% to 25% from 1 May for employees who are drawing above Rs75,000 a month. Other private carriers such as Kingfisher Airlines Ltd have also implemented some cuts. On Tuesday, at least two major trade unions of Nacil—Indian Commercial Pilots’ Association and All India Aircraft Engineers’ Association—met in Mumbai to oppose the proposal to halve the PLI. Earlier this month, hundreds of pilots of private sector carrier Jet Airways Konnect went on mass sick leave for six days to protest the firing of two pilots instrumental in forming a pilots’ union. The strike resulted in a revenue loss of $8 million (around Rs38.5 crore) a day for the airline.