Jet Airways (India) Ltd. is an airline based in Mumbai, India, operating domestic and international services. It operates over 330 daily flights to 50 destinations across the country and 6 overseas. Its main base is Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai, with hubs at Indira Gandhi International Airport, Delhi, Anna International Airport, Chennai, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata, Bangalore International Airport, Bangalore and Brussels Airport, Brussels.[1]
According to the latest available figures, its share of India's domestic aviation market has increased to over 43% (up from less than 27% a few months ago), and this is still greater than any other Indian domestic operator's market share
Jet Airways was incorporated as an "air taxi" operator on 1 April 1992. It started commercial airline operations on 5 May 1993 with a fleet of 4 Boeing 737-300 aircraft. In January 1994 a change in the law enabled Jet Airways to apply for scheduled airline status, which was granted on 4 January 1995. It began international operations to Sri Lanka in March 2004. Plans to acquire rival Air Sahara, announced in January 2006, after some rough patches deal got through. The airline is owned by Tailwinds (owned by Naresh Goyal) (80%) and public shares (20%) and has 10,017 employees (at March 2007).[1]
Naresh Goyal, who already owned Jetair (Private) Limited (which provided sales and marketing for foreign airlines in India) set up Jet Airways as a full-service scheduled airline that would give competition to state-owned Indian Airlines. Indian Airlines had enjoyed a monopoly in the domestic market between 1953, when all major Indian air transport providers were nationalised under the Air Corporations Act (1953), and January 1994, when the Air Corporations Act was repealed, following which Jet Airways received scheduled airline status. [citation needed]
Jet Airways and Air Sahara were the only private airlines to survive the Indian business downturn of the early 1990s. In January 2006, Jet Airways announced that it would buy Air Sahara making it the biggest takeover in Indian aviation history. The resulting airline would have been the country's largest[3] but the deal fell through in June 2006. However, a modified deal did go through eventually in January 2007.
Lower wages in India compared with the West are not the only explanation for Jet Airways' relatively low cost base by international standards. The company has also been able to lower its costs by "sweating its assets", i.e. getting the maximum utilisation out of its aircraft fleet by minimising turnaround times between flights, similar to the leading European/North American low-cost, "no frills" carriers. This has partly helped it to offset the high costs of the airport infrastructure as well as jet fuel in India, which are higher in India than the international average. [citation needed]
[edit] Brand ownership
[citation needed] Jet Airways does not own its brand. The brand is owned by Jetair Enterprises Ltd., a separate company substantially owned by Naresh Goyal, which licenses the brand to the airline in return for an annual payment. This arrangement is very similar to the terms governing the use of the "easy" brand by the easyJet Airline Company Limited (the name under which easyJet has been incorporated). Under the aforesaid arrangement, Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the founder and largest individual shareholder of easyJet Airline Co. Ltd. has sole ownership of the "easy" brand and licenses it to that airline for a specified payment. This kind of arrangement is of vital importance should the concerned airlines become the subject of a hostile takeover bid because the bidder[s] will not automatically acquire ownership of their takeover target's brand and without access to the brand the takeover target will be less valuable.
[edit] Controversies
It took Jet Airways more than two years to get the necessary clearances from US authorities to fly to the United States. The US State Department gave the go ahead on November 15, 2006.
Jet was expected to begin service to Newark via Brussels in June 2005 but a problem arose in March 2005, when the airline submitted an application to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Nancy Heckerman, CEO of US company Jet Airways Inc. based in Bethesda, Maryland, opposed the application in letters to the Transportation Department alleging trademark infringement. Though the litigation is still unresolved, the Department of Transportation concluded it was not a reason to prevent Jet from flying to the U.S. [4]
A second and more serious allegation that delayed Jet Airways being permitted to fly to the USA focused on its opaque ownership structure as well as its alleged links to organised crime in India and abroad. Jet Airways was originally set up as a subsidiary of Tailwinds, an Isle of Man based holding company designed as a tax shelter, whose sole shareholder was Naresh Goyal, the airline's NRI founder and chairman. Initially, both Gulf Air and Kuwait Airways had acquired minority stakes in the airline. However, the Government of India subsequently decreed that foreign airlines would not be allowed to own any shares in any Indian airline (though other foreign entities and individuals could still acquire/own minority stakes in Indian carriers)[citation needed].
For more details visit www.jetairways.com
