India’s first private airline Jet Airways flew its last flight on the Amritsar-Delhi-Mumbai route on Wednesday night as it temporarily shut down operations. As of Thursday, April 18, all flights of Jet Airways – domestic and international – stand cancelled. This came after the consortium of lenders, led by State Bank of India, refused to infuse emergency funding to the tune of Rs 400 crore to keep operations afloat.
Cancellation of all flights has led to several passengers across the globe panicking over their flight schedules, cancellations and refunds.
Essential services needed to support guest services and the re-commencement of the flight operations will be kept onboard until further notice. The airline will inform all guests about the temporary suspension of flight operations via text messages or emails to the contact details listed in their bookings.
What passengers can do
If you have booked a flight on Jet Airways on a future date, this will be informed via text, email and phone calls as per their listed contact details. Jet Airways is offering a refund for all passengers affected by the suspension of flight operations. If you have booked a flight through the Jet Airways website, click here.
On disruption assistance, passengers have to fill in a form with their details to receive refunds.
If your flight has been cancelled within 72 hours of departure, the passenger must call the airline or visit its office. Here is a list of all Jet Airways offices across the country.
If it has been more than 72 hours, one has to fill the form on the Disruption Assistance page if the flight has been booked directly with Jet. If a passenger has booked the flight through an agent, they will have to contact the agent directly.
However, if a ticket has been booked through travel websites such as MakeMyTrip, ClearTrip, Yatra, etc, Jet Airways has advised passengers to reach out to these websites to cancel and refund their tickets.
Ministry of Civil Aviation, too, has taken cognizance of the situation and has said that the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) and other regulators are monitoring the situation carefully to ensure that all existing rules regarding refunds, cancellations, and alternate bookings are followed strictly.
“Any passenger complaints or issues should be promptly reported to the AirSewa portal or on its mobile app. We will follow up immediately. Our overriding priority remains the safety, convenience and affordability of our Aviation system. We are assisting airlines and airports to bring in capacity rapidly to ensure that fares remain stable and competitive,” it said on Twitter.
The secretary of MOCA will be convening a meeting with airports in the first half of Thursday and airlines in the second half of the day to coordinate and address any emerging issues on capacity, slots and passenger convenience.
For those who have accumulated thousands of JPMiles, according to EoTo, Jet Privilege announced a new tool last month that lets you book a flight ticket on any airline, even Indigo and SpiceJet. What this means is, you can use a combination of Miles and cash to book any other flight. Check here to login and run a search to redeem your Miles. Users will only have to pay taxes and convenience fee.
Other airlines enhance connectivity
Meanwhile, Spicejet and IndiGo are enhancing their connectivity.
Effective May 2019, IndiGo will operate 10 additional flights out of Mumbai and eight additional flights from Delhi. These flights will also connect to IndiGo's existing domestic and international network.
SpiceJet, on the other hand, has announced that it will add five 90-seater Q400 aircraft, taking its Bombardier fleet size to 32. Three of these planes will join SpiceJet’s fleet in the next 10 days while the remaining two will be inducted by June. It has also announced that it will induct six more Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft on dry lease. These six aircraft are in addition to the 16 B737s and 5 Q400s that the airline will soon induct. The total number of planes to be inducted in the immediate future now stands at 27.