SBI-Led Lenders File For Jet Airways’ Bankruptcy, Hearing Begins Wednesday
The Mumbai bench of the NCLT will hear the Jet Airways bankruptcy case on Wednesday.
The State Bank of India-led consortium of lenders have filed Jet Airways’ bankruptcy case in National Company Law Tribunal to recover their dues of over Rs 8,500 crore. The Mumbai bench of the NCLT will hear the matter on Wednesday.
Jet Airways (India) Ltd., which was founded over 25 years ago by now ousted chairman Naresh Goyal, stopped flying on April 17 after it ran out of cash and the unpaid aircraft lessors took away most of its 100-odd operational planes.
On Monday, with seemingly no end to the Jet Airways crisis, lenders decided against an outright sale of the airline to a lone bidder—the Etihad Airways PJSC and Hinduja Group combine—and agreed to send it for bankruptcy.
Apart from banks, Jet Airways also owes over Rs 10,000 crore to its vendors, primarily aircraft lessors, and over Rs 3,000 crore in salaries to around 23,000 employees. The airline has had a negative net worth for quite some time now and has run a loss of over Rs 13,000 crore over the past few years. Thus, it has over Rs 36,500 crore of dues and, being a services company, negligible assets to recover.
Air Passenger Growth Rebounds In May
On Tuesday, Jet Airways shares fell 52.78 percent intraday to hit an all-time low of Rs 32.25 apiece on the BSE but later recovered to end the day 41 percent lower at Rs 40.45. In past five trading sessions, the shares have lost over 73 percent of their value.