The airlines refuse to occupy the vacant slots of grounded Jet Airways in Kerala, reports the New Indian Express. No major airlines have come forward to take the slots in Kerala. Besides, the airlines that already received the slots in Kerala chose to abandon the state and decided to deploy the aircraft in more profitable routes.
The grounded Jet Airways had 13 daily flights to various destinations including some international routes from Kochi. None of the airlines that received the slots offered services on most of Jet Airways slots, the report cited some unnamed sources.
Besides the flights from Kochi, there were three international flights from Trivandrum to Gulf regions. There was also one on a domestic route, Mumbai – Trivandrum. While the three international slots continue to remain vacant, SpiceJet has taken the domestic route. From Calicut International Airport, there were three international and two domestic flights as well. All those slots remain unfilled.
The government has allocated the bilateral flying rights of Jet Airways in five countries to Air India and Air India Express till the end of summer schedule in September. According to the bilateral rights, Jet Airways had 5,852 seats per week in India-Dubai sector and 5,670 seats per week in India-Qatar sector. Kerala is a state where more passengers are travelling to Gulf regions than to any other countries. The Gulf routes from the state were profitable for many airlines. However, there are no takers for the routes.
Meanwhile, under the distribution of Jet Airways’ foreign flying rights to airlines, IndiGo and SpiceJet have got the maximum number of rights, with 84 weekly flights for the first and 77 for the second. GoAir got the rights to operate 30 weekly flights, while Vistara got 28. All the allocations are for three months. Jet Airways, which was cash strapped from a long time had to stop operations after it could not sustain its operational expenses.
