Jet Airways announced plans to launch a new service to Dubai from Chennai, as well as a second service on the Mumbai Dubai sector, from April 23 using its two class Boeing 737-800 narrow body aircraft.

The airline currently has two daily flights to Dubai, one from Mumbai and one from New Delhi.

The schedules of the announced new flights are :

9W 546 depart Chennai 12:45 hrs, arriving Dubai 15:30 hrs.
9W 545 depart Dubai 16:30 hrs, arriving Chennai 22:15 hrs.

9W 542 depart Mumbai 09:30 hrs, arriving Dubai 11:05 hrs.
9W 541 depart Dubai 12:35 hrs, arriving Mumbai at 17:10 hrs.

This Mumbai Dubai flight is timed to offer connections to Jet's extensive domestic network.

Passengers travelling on these new services may also earn Double JPMiles and enjoy a 25 per cent discount on Jet Award tickets up to May 31, 2009.

2008 was the year reality struck home in the Indian airline industry. One whiff of the downturn exposed the lack of robust business planning, and abundance of financial vulnerability of Indian carriers, leaving all of them battered and bruised, some more than others.

We saw mass-scale defaulting on payments by carriers in India to everyone from airports to aircraft manufacturers.

Touted as THE growth sector of the future by both Boeing and Airbus in 2007, in the last nine months, domestic airlines have slashed capacity and with very shallow pockets, pulled back at least one-third of their aircraft orders due for delivery this year.

India’s domestic airline capacity shrank by more than 8%, compared with 3.5% in Japan and growth of 18% in China.

As late as mid 2008 Boeing, Airbus SAS and Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA (Embraer) were projecting delivery of 91 aircraft during 2009. They will now thank the stars if they can deliver the reduced quantity of 57 aircraft expected this year.

Both Boeing and Airbus are claiming that no airline has "cancelled orders", but this statement does not account for the deferrals in delivery and the diversion sales of aircraft by Indian carriers to foreign airlines.

In this highly competitive market, it appears that Boeing has the upper hand. It is facing deferral of only two of its 22 expected deliveries down 10%, while Airbus is down 53% expecting to deliver only 32 out of the expected 68 aircraft in large part due to Kingfisher. Embraer increased its delivery tally to five aircraft up 500% from the projected one thanks to the phenomenal growth of Paramount Airways their main customer

Boeing Customers

Jet Airways with fleet of 111 aircraft accounts for the two deferrals of Boeing. One 777-300ER and one 737. Jet has leased out a significant portion of its wide-body fleet. A total of seven of its eleven uber-luxurious Boeing 777-300ERs to Turkish Airlines THY and Gulf Air, and two each of its Airbus A330-200s to Oman Air and Gulf Air. Jet has called for a further ten per cent cut in seat capacity and is now trying to leasing out its narrow body Boeing 737s.

Image courtesy and copyright A.J. Best. Used with his permission. Please do not re-use without permission.

SpiceJet with 12.5 per cent growth will take delivery of 12 Boeing 737-800s/900s, one each quarter for the next three years adding to its fleet of 14 Boeing 737-800s and 900s.

Air India backed by the Government of India, will take delivery of its new Boeing 737-800s, four 777-300ERs and and three 777-200LRs by September, as scheduled. Air India (domestic and international combined) has a fleet of 150 aircraft. The combined order to Boeing and Airbus was for 111 aircraft.

Airbus Customers

The largest domestic carrier and most aggressive Airbus customer Kingfisher Airlines is in terrible financial shape. It led all Asian carriers with a 17.1 per cent capacity cut and has held its expansion to its existing 76 aircraft not withstanding the fracas with GECAS on four of its aircraft. It has diverted its three of its five A340-500s to Arik Air of Nigeria, the balance two have become "white tails" at Toulouse. Of the five A330-200s delivered, two are lying idle. Kingfisher is now in talks with Arik Air in an effort to lease them. The deliveries of the A380 have been deferred yet again. Even pending deliveries of ATR42s and 72s from the Air Deccan days are languishing at Toulouse. Kingfisher has been forced to defer delivery of 32 of 48 Airbus A320 planes that were due for delivery in late 2008 and in 2009 and is also diverting its narrow body A320 family orders to foreign airlines like Turkish THY. So while Airbus may deliver planes to an Indian airline, the aircraft may never come to India.

IndiGo along with fellow value carrier SpiceJet has been registered increasing market share, and has recently taken delivery of its 19th Airbus A320. It is maintaining a more conservative but steady delivery rate.

Air India domestic (formerly Indian Airlines) will maintain its delivery with Airbus for the narrow body A320 family having recently taken delivery of three each A321-200s and A319-100s. Airbus has also commenced discussions with Air India on the A380 superjumbo and hopes to convince the airline to buy a few.

While both Boeing and Airbus do not expect any new orders from the Indian market in the near to medium term, they continue to be bullish on India and maintain their market forecasts which estimates that the country’s airlines would buy up to 1,100 planes over the next 20 years.

Some Friday trivia for you to ponder.

Can you name the world's longest non-stop flight by a commercial airliner ? Longest in terms of distance and in terms of time ? Send in your answer via a comment.

And while you are pondering the answer, enjoy this rather unusual angle on a Jet Airways Boeing 737-800 Next Generation series VT-JGV.

Effective March 29th, Gulf Air is withdrawing its flights from Bahrain to Bangalore and to Hyderabad. No explanation has been provided by the airline, but I suspect that they have been crowded out by the far more aggressive Emirates Airlines.

Gulf Air flies a small Airbus A320 to Bangalore daily and a slightly larger A321 to Hyderabad four times a week, while Emirates flies three Boeing 777s/A330s daily to both cities.

Having overtaken European and ASEAN carriers, this is the first case of a fellow middle east airline feeling the pressure of the relentless expansion by Emirates across the Indian skies.

On the same date, March 29th Jet Airways will launch its Mumbai Kuwait service which complements their existing Kochi (Cochin) Kuwait service.

Mumbai-Kuwait: 9W 572 Dep 1900 hrs. Arr 2030 hrs.
Kuwait-Mumbai: 9W 571 Dep 2130 hrs. Arr 0400 hrs.

Obviously there is more traffic between Kochi and Kuwait, since even the Mumbai Kuwait service will offer convenient connections to the Mumbai Kochi services of Jet.

The entry of Air India in to the Star Alliance is delayed by at least one year to the first quarter of 2010.

Star Alliance founder, Lufthansa was a sponsor for Air India joining the Star Alliance. Since 2004, Air India has operated code-sharing flights with Lufthansa between Germany and India.

18 months ago, the Government of India decided to merge Air India and the erstwhile Indian (formerly Indian Airlines). The process of merger, which was to have been completed in 2008, has been severely delayed due to "integration" issues. Apparently there is major confusion at even the most basic levels between the staff of the two airlines, with no clarity on who is responsible for what. Where have we heard of this before?


While Star Alliance and Air India signed a non-disclosure agreement last year, the compliance is yet to be done. The IT systems are no where close to integration and Air India has not yet, even informed the Star Alliance, on which of the two systems it will finally be using. This is proving to the major sticking point for Air India's entry in to the global alliance.

Adding complexity to this issue are reports that mandarins at the Ministry of Civil Aviation of Air India owner, Government of India, are "upset" at reported talks between Jet Airways and the Star Alliance, whom they perceive as a threat to Air India.


Previously Jet Airways had an announced policy of remaining alliance neutral preferring to sign one-on-one bi-laterals instead. Delays by the US Federal Aviation Administration on Jet's code share deal with Star Alliance founder United Airlines have launched a diplomatic protest by the Indian government.

However, the extreme operating environment due to the on-going economic slowdown, the sheer size of India, and the desire of the Star Alliance to grow to 50 members especially regional airlines, may be tilting the scales in favour of Jet Airways joining the Star Alliance.

and I see not reason why can India not have two airlines participating in the alliance.

Ten days ago, on March 3rd, Gulf Air received the first of the four Boeing 777-300ER (VT-JEG) aircraft leased from Jet Airways. Two more aircraft are expected to join the Gulf Air fleet later this month while the fourth one will join in May.

The 312 seat uber-luxurious Jet Airways Boeing's are well known. See a photo gallery of the interiors here.


Photographer Antony Best caught VT-JEG painted in the Gulf Air livery at London's Heathrow airport early in the morning of March 12th. Please note the image above is copyright of A.J. Best. Bangalore Aviation has taken permission for its use, my thanks to Mr. Best. Use this image only after obtaining permission of Mr. Best.

Skyliners has a similar image here. User Allan has an image, but the registration number appears to be doctored. The aircraft still retains its Indian registration VT-JEG.

I find the Gulf Air livery one of the most beautiful in the world. What is your opinion ? Share a comment.

Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines and SpiceJet are the only three publicly listed airlines in India, and are required to release their quarterly results.

Using the results of the third quarter which ended December 31, 2008, I compiled three graphs to analyse their expenses. Depreciation and interest is included as part of expenses and other income is included as part of income.

It is important to realise each airline is compared against itself. For example, due to its low cost carrier model which forces lower expenses, SpiceJet will show a higher proportion of its operational expenses for fuel compared to the full service Jet Airways and mixed model (full and low cost) Kingfisher Airlines.



Graph 1 clearly shows that Jet Airways in the lead with the lowest expenses to income ratio at 117% up 16% from the same 9 month period from last year. The greater than 100% numbers indicate a loss. Kingfisher is spending 49% more than its income, up 10% from the same period last year. Is it any wonder the airline is in trouble ?

Click on any of the images for a larger version

Graph 2 goes a little more in detail on the expenses of the airlines. Due to the differing heads of accounts, I was forced to do a little consolidation. I have also included interest and depreciation as part of the expenses, Kingfisher and SpiceJet have managed to bring down their operational expenses by about 5%, clearly the effects on the plunging jet fuel prices.

Jet's expenses have gone up 5%. I can only surmise it is due to the cost of their uber-luxurious Boeing 777-300ERs. Now that Jet has leased out seven of its 11 777s, these expenses should come down.

Both Jet and SpiceJet have brought down their employee costs by about 2.5%. Something Kingfisher has not yet been able to achieve, and desperately needs to.

SpiceJet shows "other expenses" which includes legal, professional and consulting expenses, but the airline does not provide details in its statement.


Graph 3, shows a break up of the operational expenses as a percentage of total expenses including interest and depreciation. Kingfisher still leads the pack with the highest OpEx of 81.2%. Again Jet Airways has gone against the trend and increased its OpEx by a whopping 8% thanks to those empty international flights.

Do observe; jet fuel expenses constitute only about 36% of total expenses. So airline execs better be careful the next time they blame fuel prices for their woes.

SpiceJet with its low cost model enjoys a 16% advantage in "other operating expenses" when compared to its full service counter parts.


Unlike airlines overseas, no Indian carrier reports its performance in terms of Revenue Passenger Kilometres/Miles (RPK or RPM) or Freight Ton Kilometres/Miles (FTK or FTM). I think it is time for airlines in India to take analysts in to their confident and start sharing this information, if nothing else, it builds trust.

Please note, these graphs are copyright, but you are free to use them, unaltered, with due credit and a link to Bangalore Aviation.

Qantas announced plans for its new Indian services via Singapore, which will replace the discontinued direct services between the two countries.

From June 2, flight QF51, will fly to Mumbai via Singapore on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The return flight QF52 to Singapore will operate on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays.

Qantas will use its Singapore hub to offer passengers connections to seven Australian cities. Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney flights will be on Qantas, Cairns and Darwin will be on Qantas' low-cost subsidiary Jetstar.

In addition to its Mumbai services, Qantas has a code-share arrangement on Jet Airways flights between Delhi and Mumbai to Singapore.

Bahrain based Gulf Air has confirmed an agreement to lease four new Boeing 777-300ERs (B77W in industry parlance) from Jet Airways of India. The agreement which was signed on February 22nd, calls for three aircraft to join its fleet in March, and the fourth in May.

This deal was expected since January. Gulf Air is already wet-leasing two Airbus A330-200s from Jet on a temporary basis. Gulf Air was looking to replace its A340-300s with larger capacity B77Ws. Jet Airways has been actively leasing out most of its 11 award winning, uber-luxurious Boeing 777-300ERs in a desperate bid to stem the losses bleeding the airline.

Jet Airways has already leased out four B77Ws to Turkish THY Airlines, and with these four to Gulf Air, it will be left with just three aircraft in its fleet. Since Jet Airways sources confirmed to me they will operate four aircraft, two on the Mumbai London Heathrow route and one on the Delhi London Heathrow route, and one aircraft to be kept in the rotation, I can surmise that one more aircraft is expected to join the Jet fleet.

Jet Airways recently firmed up a deal to lease two A330-200s to Oman Air.

With an award winning cabin product like First Class suites, and herring-bone lie flat business class, these B77Ws will give Gulf Air an immediate product which can compete head-on with neighbours Emirates and Etihad in the luxury category. Gulf Air has indicated these aircraft will be used for services to several destinations such as London Heathrow, Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur as well as within the Middle East.

Jet officials claim the four 777-300ERs will be leased to Gulf Air for 42 months. The reports say the aircraft will be on wet-lease for the first six months, after which they will revert to dry leases. I only hope that Gulf Air looks after the aircraft well, a reputation which Turkish THY Airlines sadly lacks.

The US aviation regulator, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), has delayed permission to a code-sharing agreement between Jet Airways (India) Ltd and United Air Lines Inc., as per the Mint.

The code share agreement would have given Jet Airways passengers access to United’s five hubs of Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, and access to 20 other cities across the US, while United passengers would have been able to connect to 13 cities in India, including Bangalore, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi.

India currently enjoys a category I status in the United States and the delay in permissions are very surprising. Jet Airways has has lodged a complaint against the delay at India’s civil aviation ministry, which will be taken up by India through diplomatic channels.

The FAA intends to do an IASA (international aviation safety assessment) review of infrastructure and safety procedures followed by India’s regulator, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in the next three months, and India is facing the threat of downgrade to Category II status.

This will surely create relationship problems in the aviation sector, one of the key areas of trade and cooperation between the two countries. The upcoming 126 multi-role fighter aircraft deal, in which Lockheed Martin and Boeing are leading contenders, may also be threatened.

Read the full Mint article.

The recent "hijack" incident involving Indigo airlines flight 6E344 from Goa to New Delhi, has created the furore all over India, and even on to the international stage.

I am glad, Jitendra Kumar Mohala, a 42-year-old chartered accountant, and son of a retired air commodore of the Indian Air Force, has been booked under sections 336 (endangering life and personal safety of others) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code, as well as Suppression of Unlawful Act Against Safety Of Civil Aviation Act, 1982, which is non-bailable. Now let us hope the authorities throw the book at him.

In the last 15 days alone, there have been three other reported instances of passengers creating trouble on board an aircraft.

• January 14th. An Air India passenger, Valli Panikker (42) got so drunk on the flight that he started abusing and misbehaving with fellow passengers, and hit two cabin crew members on board a New York-Mumbai flight. He was handed over to Mumbai police after the plane landed. Penalty ? Rs. 1,200 fine. News report here.


• January 30th. A 72-year-old man, on a Chennai-Delhi flight, was completely drunk and started groping some women and tried to 'feel up' some of the stewardesses. Penalty ? He was de-planed. As per a police official at Chennai "As he was an aged man, the crew decided to not file a complaint against the man. We warned him not to repeat such activities and let him leave after some time." News report here.


• January 30th. A passenger, Prashant Imene, on board a Jet Airways London-Mumbai flight, molested a woman co-passenger, assaulted the cabin crew and hurled cuss words at them, threatened to throw his passport out of the window (I wonder how, at 30,000ft), tore his boarding pass, threw water on a flight attendant's face and hit an elderly passenger with a spoon. He was not drunk. Penalty ? The police booked him for outraging the modesty of a woman, threatening and assaulting. He was produced in court on January 31st. Sentence unknown. News report here.


• February 1st. Jitendra Kumar Mohala, 42, passenger on board Indigo 6E 344 misbehaved with an stewardess over some issue and threatened her, saying that he was armed. He said he had two accomplices on the board and they would hijack the plane. He also said that he was official of the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) and will inspect the plane. Penalty ? Let us see what develops.
  

Outside this 15 day window,

• July 12, 2008, a drunk Kuwaiti national, Bilal Ahmed, 40, forced a Doha to Bangkok Qatar Airways flight. to make an emergency landing in Mumbai. Sources said his hands and feet had to be tied together to bring him under control. The Mumbai police meekly returned Bilal Ahmed to Doha on the very next Qatar Airways flight, instead of meting out any punishment.

Airlines, including those in India, hire attractive young ladies as customer service and cabin crew to inject glamour in to an otherwise tiresome travel experience. The Singapore Airlines' "Singapore Girl" is renowned globally. Virgin Airlines is considered "Still Red Hot" with its glamorous red uniformed female cabin crew, a theme followed by Kingfisher airlines in India. The crews of Jet, Indigo, SpiceJet, and some in Air India, are no less, in the glamour quotient.

Indian air crews, particularly, females, have to put up with troublesome passengers some who are over-aggressive, often hostile, many times drunk and lecherous, believing that the stewardess is their personal property to abuse, grope, and fondle.

In the land when 'Devi', the female goddess, is worshipped, this lack of respect for women in the air, is utterly disgusting.

It is not just passengers, just yesterday (February 3rd), in a most shocking incident, an Andhra Pradesh Home Guard attached to the Rajiv Gandhi International Airport, B Vinod Reddy, was arrested for eve-teasing some girl students and then beating up their male classmate when he attempted to intervene and get Reddy to stop. Reddy was finally arrested and charged under sections 323 (Voluntarily causing hurt) and 509 (Insult the modesty of a woman) of the Indian Penal Code, after the students went on a protest at the airport.

Despite India having the laws under the Indian Penal Code, and being a signatory to all United Nations' conventions and treaties covering civil aviation, recent incident indicate a pattern of not levying punishment.

Compare the minor penalties in India, to the penalties in the United Kingdom which mandates a penalty of £5,000 or 2 years’ imprisonment. In the United States, criminal penalties are a fine of up to US$ 11,000 or 20 years imprisonment, civil penalties aside.

India has to enforce its laws, and severely punish offenders, only then, will passengers learn to control their mouths, their hands, and their behaviour.

What also surprises me is the lack of complaints from the airlines or the crews. I refuse to accept that a stewardess is not disgusted to the point of making a complaint, after being groped, abused, or 'felt-up'. An airline looses a lot of money by making emergency landings, and looses passengers who have to put up with a horrible experience.

It is time for all of us to stand firm with a "zero tolerance" policy against these maniac passengers, and also empower the crew by supporting their complaints. Otherwise, we risk the typical knee-jerk reaction, one can expect from the government -- to ban serving of alcohol on board any flight, which will only inconvenience 99.9% of passengers instead of punishing the offending 0.1%, and still leave cases like Prashant Imene (who was not drunk) and Jitendra Kumar Mohala (who drank before the flight) un-addressed.

Kingfisher is the largest defaulting private airline in India, and this has finally caught up with it. State owned oil marketing companies (OMCs), who claim they are owed about Rs. 1,000 Crore ($200 million), have enforced 'cash and carry' payment terms on the airline, since it has not cleared its dues, even after the extended 90 day payment terms.

Kingfisher Airlines will now have to pay upfront to buy aviation turbine fuel from oil companies to operate its regular scheduled flights. It goes without saying, this will put a major kink in the operations of the airline.

Airline officials are trying to keep its operations unaffected and claim that Kingfisher is sticking to all its schedules.

Hectic negotiations are on behind the scene. Industry sources in the oil industry indicate that with Kingfisher Airlines agreeing to the cash upfront terms, OMCs may not carry out any immediate action against the airline, though they will continue to seek ways to get the dues from the airline, and are also demanding interest on the outstanding dues, and bank guarantees.

Kingfisher Alliance partner, Jet Airways, has paid about Rs. 98 Crore, when pressed by the OMCs on January 28th. However, no action is contemplated against, the state owned National Aviation Company of India Ltd. (NACIL) which operates Air India.

NACIL is estimated to owe the OMCs about Rs. 2,500 Crore ($500 million), but no official, including the CEOs of the OMCs, would even dream of taking any step, for fear of their job. One hand of government has to scratch the back of the other.

The Mint is reporting that GoAir recently started offering uniform fares, inclusive of surcharges and other taxes, for purchases made 21 days in advance.

For short sectors, defined as less than 750 kms travel distance, the airline will charge Rs 1,700 a ticket and Rs 2,700 for distances greater than 750 kms. According to the company statement, in effect a Mumbai-Delhi ticket bought 21 days in advance will be for Rs 2,700 instead of the base fare of at least Rs 1,000 plus Rs 2,925 of surcharges and airport fees.

GoAir’s new offer is in reaction to the introduction of Rs one fare by IndiGo on certain routes and SpiceJet Ltd.’s Rs 99 base fare for tickets booked at least 21 days before travel.

The quarter ended December 31, 2008 witnessed an 18 per cent decline in domestic passenger growth, and has prompted all major airline groups in India to resort to price cuts in order to stimulate passenger demand.

Jet Airways, and its low cost subsidiary JetLite, were one of the early adopters of the 21 day advance fares also called APEX fares. Jet Airways also recently offered Rs 250 base ticket fares, while JetLite started Rs nine base fare for travel during this month. It has similar schemes for its Business-Class too. Jet Airways is expecting a 15 per cent increase in passenger traffic.

Jet's alliance partner Kingfisher Airlines also slashed fares between 21 per cent and 65 per cent on various routes earlier this month while the state-owned and operated National Aviation Company of India Ltd. (NACIL), which runs Air India, also announced an average reduction of 52 per cent in basic fares for domestic travel on 20 major routes.

2008 was a torrid year for domestic airlines in India, as recently released figures by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) show.

Domestic passenger traffic for the year 2008 fell 5% from 42.58 million to 40.77 million (Fig. 1), driven by the increase in fuel costs, and the massive hikes in air fares, which are yet to fully retreat, and capacity reductions by the airlines.


The Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) Indigo, SpiceJet, and JetLite, improved their market shares at the expense of Full Service Carriers (FCCs) Air India, Jet Airways, and Kingfisher Airlines. IndiGo is the big winner this year with a four per cent market share gain. Air India (the former Indian Airlines), gave up a big three per cent share. (Fig. 2)

The notable exception is Go Air (now called No Go Air due to its numerous flight cancellations), and the former Air Deccan, now christened Kingfisher Red after their acquisition. Kingfisher Red lost five per cent market share, while Kingfisher Airlines gained only three per cent, resulting in an overall loss of two per cent market share to competitors. Clearly the strategy at Kingfisher is not working.


While most airlines and airline groups lost in actual passenger numbers, LCCs IndiGo, SpiceJet, JetLite (the former Air Sahara now a subsidiary of Jet Airways), and Paramount, gained passengers. (Fig. 3).

The capacity swapping at Kingfisher group is clearly visible, and when performance of both Kingfisher Airlines and Kingfisher Red is combined, actual passenger numbers went down 10.5 per cent, from 12.56 million to 11.25 million.


The first two quarters of 2008, provided no clue to the excess capacity in the Indian airline industry. The "perfect storm" of increased fuel prices and reduced economic activity started rearing its ugly head towards the end of Q2 (April, May, June), and kicked the industry in it's teeth in Q3, with a mind numbing 25 per cent drop in traffic. (Fig. 4). Q4 has provided some seasonal relief, but Q1 of 2009 will see numbers dropping back again.


With the exception of Paramount, which has a small niche regional market, all the airlines saw massive drops in passengers in Q3. (Fig. 5). Most airlines staged a recovery in Q4, but the surprise is Jet Airways. It's passenger numbers tanked almost 20 per cent in Q3 and continued the downfall by another 15 per cent in Q4.


The market share of LCCs followed the increase in air fares, as passengers shifted from the FSCs. SpiceJet share in Q3 reflected its financial problems, prior to the Ross bailout. (Fig. 6)

It is an ignominious performance that the pioneer in the air travel bubble, Air Deccan (now Kingfisher Red) has lost over six per cent market share over the year. Clearly many of the "first time flier" passengers have chosen not to repeat, either returning back to trains and buses, or moving to other carriers like IndiGo and SpiceJet.


The data highlights the price sensitive nature of the Indian traveller. IndiGo appears to have a winning formula with its low prices and efficient service. Fancy gimmicks do not work. At a time of economic slowdown, the FSCs have to get their act together quickly. By holding fuel surcharges to unjustifiably high levels, they are surrendering ground to the LCCs and surface transport.

The ultra luxurious Boeing 777-300ER of Jet Airways, which have also been leased to Turkish Airlines THY and Gulf Air. I hope you enjoy the images of the luxury on offer in these aircraft, for those lucky to travel in the Business class or First class suites.



Talks are on with Oman Air, but it is unknown whether Jet is offering its 777s or its Airbus A330-200s.

Click on the images for a larger view.

Seat Map
Business Class

First Class suites

As usual your comments are requested and welcome.