Sunset For Once-Storied Jet Airways As Turbulent Insolvency Flight Ends

Jet Airways: More than five years ago on an April evening, cash-starved Jet Airways announced the temporary grounding of operations after flying as a full-service airline for 25 years. Since then, more than 20,000 jobs and money worth thousands of crores owed to lenders, vendors, and passengers evaporated while awaiting an insolvency resolution. And now, the Supreme Court ordered the airline's liquidation, marking the formal completion of a turbulent journey into the sunset and shattering lean revival hopes.

On April 17, 2019, the airline's last flight S2-3502 took off from Amristar around 10.30 pm and touched down at Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport at 12.22 am on April 18. Jet Airways' low-cost arm JetLite operated the flight with a Boeing 737-800 aircraft, which was later taken on lease by no-frills airline SpiceJet.

At the peak of its operations, Jet Airways had little over 120 planes. When the operations came to a halt due to mounting debt woes and unpaid salaries, the airline had around 16 own planes. 

Founded by Naresh Goyal, who began as a general sales agent to a host of international airlines with travel agency Jetair, the carrier had served tens of millions of passengers for over two and a half decades.

Jet Airways was also one of the dominant private airlines in the Indian aviation firmament till its descend began with mounting financial woes. The airline began its journey as an air taxi operator with service from Mumbai to Ahmedabad and it had about 1,300 pilots and a total of about 20,000 employees at its peak.

At the time of announcing temporary grounding of operations in 2019, Jet Airways had more than 20,000 staff and owed over Rs 8,500 crore to banks apart from thousands of crores in dues to vendors and passenger refunds.

Weeks after Jet Airways halted operations on April 17, 2019, lenders sought an insolvency resolution process to recover their dues. On June 20, 2019, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) admitted the insolvency petition filed against the airline.

In 2021, Jalan Kalrock Consortium (JKC) emerged as the successful bidder of Jet Airways under the insolvency resolution process but persisting differences with the lenders resulted in the resolution plan remaining grounded.

On Thursday, the Supreme Court invoked its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution and put the curtains down on the insolvency proceedings of the airline by setting aside the order of the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT).

The NCLAT had allowed JKC to take over Jet Airways without fully complying with its payment obligations, it observed. Apart from liquidation, the apex court has directed forfeiture of Rs 200 crore infused by successful bidder JKC and permitted the lenders led by SBI to encash Rs 150 crore performance bank guarantee.

The court allowed the plea of SBI and other creditors against the NCLAT decision that upheld the resolution plan of Jet Airways in favour of JKC.

In a statement on April 17, 2019, Jet Airways had said since "no emergency funding from the lenders or any other source is forthcoming, we will not be able to pay for fuel or other critical services to keep the operations going.

"Consequently, with immediate effect, we are compelled to cancel all our international and domestic flights temporarily. The last flight will operate today," it had said.

After these years of the airline's collapse, what remains are disrupted livelihoods, unpaid dues and a few planes with Jet Airways livery gathering dust.