The current fiscal would see the country’s largest private airline, Jet Airways (India) merging with its wholly-owned subsidiary JetLite into Jet Airways. Naresh Goyal, Jet promoter is hopeful that the merger may break even by the end of this year.  

In the year 2007, Air Sahara was acquired by Jet Airways and had been renamed as JetLite. According to Sudheer Raghvan, chief commercial officer, Jet Airways, “We are not ruling out the merger but haven’t finalized anything.”

He further reported, “The Company is analyzing many options to break even by December end at any cost as aviation is our core business and we are in the industry to do business.”

It was also known that even though Jet Airways wants to put in money, bankers and financial institutions will only invest if the business is merged into one and prove to be profitable.  

Mr Raghvan informed on this that at present no one wants to invest in airlines, thus it is really tough to find funding from the institutions.  

Presently, Jet Airways has more than 25% share of the Indian market. However, the Airline feels that in such tough times when inflation is soaring, it is very difficult for low-cost carriers, one like itself, to remain in business.  

A jet executive was quoted as saying, “There are people who think crazy low fares will increase the load factor and subsequently sustain the airline. The fares should be fixed in the range where it makes the business profitable.”

JetLite, which currently has a really weak balance sheet and the decision of merging Jetlite into Jet Airways is thus a wise decision. This will help the low-cost carrier to stay in business.