Jet Airways rules out Air India bid
MUMBAI: Jet Airways yesterday became the latest major Indian airline to rule out a bid for debt-laden national carrier Air India in a new blow to the government’s privatisation plans.
The announcement came just days after rival IndiGo pulled out of the race to acquire Air India’s operations meaning the government now has no clear frontrunner in the sale campaign.
“We welcome the government move to privatise Air India. It is a bold step,” Jet Airways’ deputy chief executive, Amit Agarwal said in a statement emailed to AFP.
“However, considering the terms of offer in the information memorandum and based on our review, we are not participating in the process,” he added.
Once the country’s monopoly airline, Air India has slowly lost market share to new low-cost private players in one of the world’s fastest-growing airline markets.
Air India ran losses for nearly a decade after a botched merger in 2007 and has debts of around $7.67 billion according to government figures.
It has received $5.8 billion in bailout funds from the government but needs even more working capital to turn it around, experts say.
The Indian government recently said it wanted to sell a 76% chunk of the struggling carrier.
It released bid documents on what would be one of the country’s highestprofile asset sales in decades showing it wants the prospective buyer to take on all of Air India’s operations.
IndiGo, India’s largest airline, withdrew on Friday, saying it was interested only in Air India’s international routes and not its domestic operations.
Separately on Monday, aviation advisory firm Swiss Aviation Consulting (SAC) denied it has expressed interest in bidding for Air India.
“SAC has never expressed interest in acquiring Air India or parts of it, or has acted as a front for some other stake holder,’’ the company told Reuters in an email.
Earlier, the Economic Times newspaper quoted a senior aviation ministry official as saying that SAC has shown interest in bidding for Air India, although the report added that the Swiss company might only be scouting for clients.
The advisory firm said it has not been in contact with Indian government officials or Air India representatives regarding bidding for the carrier.
SAC offers services including aircraft asset management, sales and consultancy services on acquisitions, according to its website.
India has the world’s fastest-growing passenger airline industry, expanding at an annual rate of around 20%.
About 100 million of its 1.25 billion people took to the skies in 2016 and airlines have embarked on huge purchases of new jets in expectation of new growth.