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Oman Air in talks with India’s Jet Airways on leasing aircraft

MUSCAT — India’s Jet Airways is in talks with the Sultanate’s national carrier, Oman Air, for commercial cooperation — leasing of its aircraft.

Speaking to Times of Oman yesterday, Saroj K. Datta, executive director of Jet Airways, who was in town for negotiations with top officials of Oman Air, said: “We are in talks with Oman Air for commercial cooperation about leasing of aircraft. We have some surplus aircraft and wanted to know whether Oman Air would be interested in leasing them.”

“But it (the lease) is subject to government approval, so I can’t talk more on this at this stage. Apart from that, the board of directors of both companies also need to approve this. After that, we both will make an announcement,” Datta added.

The announcement is likely to be made in a couple of weeks, Datta said.

Jet Airways has been leasing out aircraft rendered surplus following route rationalisation, cutting down on operations and cost pruning.

“We already have leased two A330s to Gulf Air, and three A777s to Turkish Airlines. We are negotiating with Gulf Air to lease another three to four 777 aircraft,” Datta added. Jet Airways leased its aircraft to Gulf Air in December. That deal is on till the end of March.

Stating that the global recession had hit the Indian airlines industry very badly and will continue to impact the industry throughout 2009, Datta said: “The industry is going to make huge losses. It could easily be in excess of two billion dollars for the entire Indian airline industry. There are a lot of difficulties all of us are facing. That is why all of us have cut back on capacity and are planning to reduce costs.”

On job cuts, Datta said: “We have cut down operations and hence don’t need as many expatriate pilots as before. So their contracts will not be renewed. If our surplus aircraft are leased out, some of those expatriate pilots will stay put till Oman Air pilots are ready to take over.”

Stating that Jet Airways had, for now, put on hold their international expansion plans, Datta said: “We are not planning any major routes now. In fact, we have cutback on operations on a number of international routes. January 12 will be our last flight to Shanghai. We had plans to operate a second flight from Mumbai to Dubai, but no more. We have also put on hold our plans to start operations to Saudi Arabia. That is how aircraft have become surplus.”

Pointing out that the airlines in the Middle East region are well poised to weather the downturn, Datta said: “If Gulf Airways and Turkish Airlines have leased aircraft and Oman Air is planning to lease aircraft, that means they have plans to expand. Emirates, Eithad and Qatar Airways too have huge expansion plans, which indicate that things are looking good for them.”