Mumbai: Aviation regulator DGCA may bar beleaguered carrier Jet Airways from taking advance bookings beyond a particular period after economic woes saw the airline drastically reducing its capacity and cancelling many of its flights.
Jet Airways, who operate over 600 flights within India and overseas, has been flying only 61 of their 116 planes it has in its fleet. As many as 45 per cent of its total daily flights have been cancelled.
"We may ask Jet Airways not to accept forward bookings beyond a particular period," a senior DGCA official informed on Thursday.
SpiceJet had also gone a similar scrutiny in 2014 when it was on the verge of closure. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) had allowed the airline to sell tickets only for travel within a month.
It seems Jet Airways will also face a similar fate. The final decision on the issue will be taken after seeking a report from Jet Airways. A review meeting on Friday will see to the airline's flights schedule in order to ensure that there are no sudden flight disruptions due to grounding of aircraft.
The Naresh Goyal-promoted carrier has been looking at various ways to raise funds amid this acute liquidity. With the flights grounded, the airline was forced to delay salary payments to its pilots and engineers, and other senior staff.
On March 8, Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal wrote to Etihad Airways Group CEO, Tony Douglas, seeking an urgent funding of Rs 750 Crore under an agreement signed between various stakeholders. In the letter, Goyal informed that "Jet Airways is in a very precarious position, with more than 50 aircraft grounded and increasing arrears of vendors and salaries which makes the need for interim funding all the more imperative."
The decision has come in the wake of the full service carrier announcing on its website a discount sale for all-inclusive fares of Rs 1,165 for travel to thirty-seven destinations in India and with a one-year travel validity. Disgruntled passengers took to social media to express their displeasure at the airline's shabby operations.
Outrage on social media, calls for boycott
The embattled Jet Airways had put up photographs of smiling women employees on social media for Women's Day using the tagline 'Standing tall; touching the skies' but few passengers reacted cheerfully.
'Touching the skies' is a good joke at a time when your flights are getting grounded, responded a user on Twitter. Many others expressed their anger and dismay at cancellations, delays in refunds, and long response times to telephone calls.
Delhi-born businessman Siddhant Agarwal's flight from his honeymoon was abruptly cancelled just days before the wedding. “We had to worry about rebooking flights during our wedding, when there was already so much to do,” he said. Agarwal had to pay nearly twice as much for the new tickets.
These rising customer frustrations and calls for boycott could bring further disruption for the 25-year-old airline grappling with financial woes.