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Employee Consortium, AdiGroup To Bid For 75% Of Jet Airways At NCLT

Every single employee of Jet Airways will become an owner of the airline, says AdiGroup and the Employee Consortium.

 AdiGroup Chairman Sanjay Viswanathan during a press conference with Jet Airways employees, in New Delhi on Friday. (Photographer: Arun Sharma/PTI)
AdiGroup Chairman Sanjay Viswanathan during a press conference with Jet Airways employees, in New Delhi on Friday. (Photographer: Arun Sharma/PTI)

A consortium of Jet Airways employees and the U.K.-based AdiGroup announced Friday a partnership to bid for 75 percent of debt-laden Jet Airways (India) Ltd. through the NCLT process, members of the consortium said.

Jet Airways became the first airline to go into bankruptcy after the Mumbai bench of National Company Law Tribunal admitted an insolvency petition filed by State Bank of India on behalf of 26 lenders on June 20.

The airline owes Rs 8,500 crore to banks and around Rs 25,000 crore in arrears to vendors, lessors and employees.

“Jet Airways Employee Consortium and AdiGroup are delighted to announce their partnership to bid for acquisition of 75 percent of Jet Airways through the NCLT process,” a joint statement by AdiGroup and the consortium said.

“This is a new dawn in the history of Indian aviation of operating an airline through employee Initiative programme where every single employee of Jet Airways will become an owner of the airline,” the statement said. “It truly embodies the Prime Minister's dream of ‘Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas Sabka Vishwas’.”

At a press conference in Delhi, Captain Ashwani Tyagi, Commander Boeing 777, General Secretary-Society for Welfare of Indian Pilots, and one of Jet Airways’ senior pilots who has been with the airline for 18 years, said the airline was like a family to him and it was “challenging yet exciting journey to revive Jet Airways”.