Jet grounding led to shift in India plans, says Virgin Atlantic
The grounding of code share partner Jet Airways (India) Ltd prompted Virgin Atlantic to launch its own London-Mumbai service to boost growth, an executive at the British airline said. Code-sharing allows an airline to book its passengers on partner carriers and provide seamless travel to destinations where it has no presence.
“We had a code share partnership with Jet Airways, and we planned to grow that,” Virgin Atlantic India manager David Hodges said, adding, “Unfortunately, the grounding of Jet Airways changed our growth plans.”
Virgin Atlantic is beginning a daily London-Mumbai flight from October 27, entering the space vacated by Jet Airways, which operated three daily flights on this high-demand sector. Jet Airways also flew a daily flight between Mumbai and Manchester.
“There was a lot of capacity (between Mumbai and London/ Manchester). We were looking to increase our presence in the partnership with Jet Airways and probably fly one Virgin Airways flight between England and India (one of the flights operated by Jet Airways),” Hodges said.
“We need to be quick and nimble (after Jet’s grounding). So, we decided to start our own services between London and Mumbai,” he added. Virgin Atlantic already has a daily flight between London and New Delhi.
Jet Airways suspended operations in April after a severe cash crunch. A consortium of 26 banks led by the State Bank of India (SBI) has approached the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to recover the airline’s dues of more than ₹8,500 crore.
Jet Airways had run up a loss of more than ₹13,000 crore over the past few years. Its total liabilities amount to more than ₹15,000 crore. The lenders have been trying to sell the beleaguered airline as a going concern, but without much success. Hodges said Virgin Atlantic is looking at forging new partnerships with Indian airlines to receive passengers from smaller Indian cities and towns. The airline, which already has an interline partnership with Vistara, is looking to forge more such partnerships or code share agreements with other Indian airlines.