Lenders file for Jet Airways’ bankruptcy, hearing today

Mumbai, June 18 

The consortium of 26 bankers led by SBI today took the grounded Jet Airways to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to recover their dues of over Rs 8,500 crore. The tribunal will hear the matter on Wednesday.

Jet Airways, started over 25 years ago by airline-ticketing-agent-turned-entrepreneur Naresh Goyal, stopped flying on April 17 after it ran out of cash and the unpaid lessors took away most of its 100-odd operational airplanes.

The lenders have been trying to sell the airline as a going concern since the past five months, but failed due to many a reason.

Apart from banks, the airline also owes over Rs 10,000 crore to its hundreds of vendors, primarily aircraft lessors and over Rs 3,000 crore to around 23,000 employees who have not been paid since March.

The airline has been having negative net worth for long and has run a loss of over Rs 13,000 crore in the past few years. Thus it has over Rs 36,500 crore of dues and being services company negligible assets to recover.

Also, most of its domestic airport slots have been given away to other airlines by the government and so are some of its slots at some key international airports.

On the aeroplane asset side, Jet had only 16 on its books which are valued around Rs 5,000 crore as per some media reports, as the rest of its 123 fleet were on lease and most of them have been de-registered or taken away by the foreign lessors already. — PTI

Shares plummet 41% 

• Jet Airways’ shares faced massive drubbing on Tuesday and tumbled nearly 41% after SBI-led consortium of lenders decided to send the grounded airline to the NCLT
• The scrip plummeted 40.78% to close at Rs 40.45 on the BSE. During the day, it tanked 52.78% to hit an all-time low of Rs 32.25
• On the National Stock Exchange, shares plunged 40.78% to close at Rs 40.50 apiece. During the day, it dropped 53.72% to a record low of Rs 31.65

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