49 out of 119 Jet Airways planes are grounded

More planes of troubled private carrier Jet Airways have been grounded, mainly due to non-payment to lessors, taking the total number to 49, a senior DGCA official said on Thursday, contesting the airline’s claims of a sharply lower number of non-operational planes.

"At this moment, they (airline) have 70 aircraft that are operational. At early December, they were operating 100 aircraft," a Directorate General of India Aviation (DGCA) official told PTI.

An independent analysis by CNBC-TV18 by collating data from Planespotters.com and Flightradar24 confirmed that Jet has actually grounded 49 plans. That would be nearly 40 percent of the airline’s total fleet.

On Thursday, the airline said it grounded three more aircraft as it failed to make payments to its lessors. Jet Airways has been maintaining since February 7, when it announced the grounding of four planes, that it is actively "engaged" with all its aircraft lessors and regularly provides them with updates on the efforts undertaken to improve its liquidity. Since then, it has been grounding aircraft in tranches.

According to Jet Airways website, the airline has over 119 aircraft in its fleet.

The "remaining 49 aircraft are grounded" and the airline has been told to ensure that passengers do not suffer because of flight cancellations resulting from this situation, the DGCA official told PTI.