Mumbai: Jet Airways is reconfiguring its Boeing 737 fleet to add extra business class seats ahead of Tata-Singapore Airlines plans to launch a full service airline. The airline also plans to cut down flights on loss making domestic routes and is stopping all services to Bhubaneswar as a measure to arrest losses. The airline posted its worst ever consolidated loss of Rs 998 crore for second quarter of the current fiscal.
Jet Airways and subsidiary JetLite have 70 narow body Boeing 737s of different variants and are flown on domestic routes, Gulf and South East Asia. Thirteen planes from JetLite fleet and a few planes in Jet Airways fleet have eight business class seats. These planes will be reconfigured to add four extra business seats thus increasing the premium segment seating. A few Boeing 737s have 16 and 28 business class seats at present.
The reconfiguration exercise will happen over the next few months as the airline expects demand growth in business class and improvement in loads due to seasonality factor. Also the move will lead to improvement in yields as a business class ticket is priced four times higher than an economy class ticket. The airline has been unable to achieve a break even in last six months as fares were too low too recover operating costs. Increasing number of business class seats will also help increase the revenue which has remained flat in last two quarters.
Read news in full 26/10/13 Aneesh Phadnis/Business Standard
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