Jet Airways sold a former Boeing 777-300ER in the Netherlands as part of the airline’s bankruptcy proceedings. The airline, which has been in the process of revival after been grounded for more than two years, decided to sell the Boeing 777 aircraft, which had been under the custody of the Dutch administration for $9 million.
In the regulatory filing on Saturday, September 4th, 2021, the airlines said that the proceeding from the sales would be mainly utilized to close the insolvency process against it; after the sale of the Jet’s Boeing 777, the Netherlands now stands concluded with Indian carrier.
On June 22nd, the court had cleared the airline’s proposal to revive its service; although Jet has admitted the consortium of around Rs. 150 billion, the consortium has offered to settle the claims of Rs. 4.75 billion of financial and non-financial creditors. Jet has already paid almost 95% of the resolution to its creditors; the owner’s consortium has proposed to pay Rs. 3.85 billion against claims of Rs. 78.08 billion was raised by its financial creditors.
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The Indian carrier got in the pinch after the bank launched legal actions against the company. The Anglo-Swiss venture capital fund, Kalrock, and the UAE investor, Murari Lal Jalan, were set to find ways to restart the Jet\s services from earlier next year. But, the Punjab National Bank, one of the creditors that lost more than $100 million of their money during the collapse of Jet Airways, is challenging the revival of the airlines. In addition to those, Jet also faces many claims from the trade unions over the unpaid salary and pensions to its employees.
Jet Airways, during its grounding, had initially promised that the passengers who had already booked services with the airlines would be getting their full refunds, or they would be rebooked for their scheduled flights with other airlines. But, over the period, it was proven that all the promises made by the Indian carrier were shallow and fake that they never intended to comply. Thousands of the UK-based passengers who already had booked flights from the Jet had to pay for new flights to the UK from Mumbai and other parts of India without any compensation from the Jet.
The Dutch liquidators who sold the Jet\s Boeing 777-300ER for just a fraction of its original cost, $9 million, have created new problems for the Indian carrier that is putting effort into restarting its services. The Jet\s wide-body Boeing 777 was impounded at the Schiphol airport in Amsterdam because of the airline’s unpaid debts; a Miami-based firm took the opportunity and purchased the aircraft at just $9 million(£6.5m), the present market value of Boeing 777-300s is around $ 279 million. Besides the loss of just a 14-year old wide-bodied aircraft, Jet also lost its slots in the Dutch Airport. The Indian carrier now has five more of the Boeing 777s and four smaller aircraft in its fleet.
April 17th, 2021, marked the second year since Jet Airways was grounded for multi-crore unpaid dues after 25 years of operation. The major Indian airline based in Mumbai had pulled a curtain in its service since April 17th, 2019, over the unpaid dues that totaled over Rs. 8000 crores. The State Bank of India dragged the airlines immediately to the insolvency court after it was grounded. The Ministry of Civil Aviation also handed over the Jet Airways slot to the other airlines on a temporary basis. Although they handed over the slot to other airlines over the grounding of Jet Airways, the authorities did assure that the slots would be returned to the airlines when there was a firm business proposal from their side.
