Jet Airways: On an April evening five years ago, cash-strapped Jet Airways announced a temporary grounding after 25 years as a full-service airline. Since then, more than 20,000 jobs and hundreds of millions of rupees worth of money owed to lenders, suppliers and passengers have disappeared while awaiting resolution of the bankruptcy. Now, the Supreme Court has ordered the airline to liquidate, marking the official end of a tumultuous sunset and dashing hopes of a lean revival.
The airline’s last flight S2-3502 took off from Amrista at around 10:30 pm on April 17, 2019 and landed at Chhatrapat, Mumbai at 12:22 am on April 18 Tihwaji International Airport.
At its peak operating period, Jet Airways had a fleet of more than 120 aircraft. The airline had about 16 of its own planes when operations were halted by a growing debt crisis and unpaid wages.
The airline was founded by Naresh Goyal, who started out as a general sales agent for various international airlines under Jetair and has served thousands of passengers for over two and a half decades. Millions of passengers were served.
Jet Airways was also one of the dominant private airlines in India until it began to decline due to growing financial difficulties. The airline, which started as an air taxi operator offering flights from Mumbai to Ahmedabad, had about 1,300 pilots and about 20,000 employees at its peak.
Jet Airways, which had more than 20,000 employees as of 2019 when it announced the temporary grounding, owed more than Rs 8,500 crore to banks, in addition to tens of millions of rupees in arrears from suppliers and passenger refunds.
Weeks after Jet Airways ceased operations on April 17, 2019, lenders sought insolvency resolution proceedings to recover their dues. On June 20, 2019, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) accepted the bankruptcy petition filed against the airline.
Jalan Kalrock Consortium (JKC) emerged as the winning bidder for Jet Airways in the insolvency resolution process in 2021, but ongoing differences with lenders have meant the resolution plan remains on hold.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ended the airline’s bankruptcy proceedings by quashing the order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT), invoking its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution.
NCLAT observed that NCLAT allowed JKC to take over Jet Airways without fully fulfilling its payment obligations. Apart from liquidation, the Supreme Court also directed the forfeiture of Rs 200 crore injected by the successful bidder JKC and allowed lenders led by SBI to encash performance bank guarantees of Rs 150 crore.
The court allowed SBI and other creditors to challenge the NCLAT ruling which upheld Jet Airways’ resolution plan in favor of JKC.
In a statement on April 17, 2019, Jet Airways said that in the absence of “emergency funding from lenders or any other source, we will not be able to pay for fuel or other critical services to sustain operations.”
“As a result, we are forced to temporarily cancel all international and domestic flights with immediate effect. The last flight will operate today,” the company said.
After years of airline collapses, what remains are disrupted livelihoods, unpaid dues and a few jets bearing the Jet Airways logo gathering dust.
