Jet Airways 2.0 Set for Testing Flights During Mid-May; Set to Launch Its Commercial Operations in July-September

According to two persons with firsthand knowledge of the situation, Jet Airways 2.0 will operate proving flights in the first half of May under its new backers, with commercial operations slated to begin in the July-September period. During proving flights, or test flights, the airline’s personnel, including those at the check-in counter, engineers, pilots, cabin crew, and maintenance specialists, closely monitor all actions to ensure that they closely resemble real-time commercial operations. Jet Airways, which was grounded in April 2019, needs to fly proving flights in order to revalidate its air operator certificate (AOC) and resume commercial flights. “The date has to be finalized soon. Some interim steps in between (must be completed) and a date that works for the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) officials who need to be on-board the proving flights has to be finalized,” said the one of the two people, seeking anonymity. “It is likely to be completed by the first half of the month,” he added. Proving flights are usually run across many sectors with a combined block time to allow airlines to demonstrate flight safety and other aspects of their operations to regulators. According to the DGCA, they are operated on one or more of the airline’s intended destinations. The crew for the first testing flight has already been picked by Jet Airways 2.0. For the experiment, the airline will use a Boeing 737-8 aircraft (VT-SXE). In the meanwhile, the aircraft, which was previously operated by Jet Airways under prior management, was leased to SpiceJet.