Former partners of Jet Airways who have collapsed, rivals are striving to fill the void of capacity of India

SEOUL (Reuters) – Former partners and rivals of Jet Airways Ltd are launching replacement links and are looking for new codeshare partners as they strive to fill the lucrative void left by the airline. collapse of the largest Indian airline, India.

Jet, which ceased operations on April 17 after running out of cash, held a market share of about 12% on international flights to and from India in 2018, according to government statistics. , even surpbading the national carrier Air India.

In the absence of Jet, Air India, which is short of money, is the only Indian carrier to operate large jet jets capable of making non – stop flights to the United States. Europe and the United States, although the joint venture Vistara owned by Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines Ltd has 6 Boeing Co 787 on order due for delivery from next year.

International airfares jumped 36% in May and June, according to travel portal data Yatra.com, former partners of Jet, Virgin Atlantic and Delta Air Lines Inc., were among the first to announce new routes to replace those already borrowed. by Jet.

"People always want to travel. Foreign carriers are changing their networks and investing more in India if they can, "said General Manager of the Asian Airlines Association, Andrew Herdman, on the sidelines of a conference of the airline. 39, air transport industry in Seoul.

KLM and its airline Air France will increase their capacity in India by 25% over the next winter season through the use of larger planes, higher frequencies and more. a new Bangalore-Amsterdam link from October.

In October, Virgin Atlantic will launch Mumbai-London, while Delta will fly back and forth from Mumbai to New York from December, a sign that it will take months to replace Jet's non-stop capabilities.

"I think in the next four or five months, most of the (national) capacity will be used," SpiceJet Ltd. chairman Ajay Singh said in an interview. "As far as the international is concerned, it may take a bit longer, since Jet was flying a large number of large aircraft that are more difficult for Indian carriers to handle at a similar pace. quick."

Other airlines, such as Emirates, Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines, will need the recently re-elected Indian government Modi to ease bilateral restrictions restricting flights to current levels. Singh said this was unlikely because of India's policy to develop its own platforms.

The capacity deficit in the Middle East means that fares on this market are likely to remain longer than on some domestic or other routes, said Rohit Philip, chief financial officer of IndiGo's low-cost carrier IndiGo on May 27. badysts.

IndiGo signed a code sharing agreement with Turkish and a few days after Jet stopped flying, SpiceJet signed a code share agreement with Emirates. None of the two Indian carriers have large bodies.

Christian Scherer, Commercial Director of Airbus SE, said that a new technology, such as a longer version of the A321neo, could help IndiGo to launch non-stop flights to Europe without making the more expensive and risky decision to add large bodies to its fleet.

"I think you're going to see a great ability going to India to replace Jet's and you're going to see some narrow bodies capturing that market," he told reporters.

Other former Jet partners are in talks with carriers such as IndiGo and SpiceJet about new codeshare relationships.

Managing Director, Alan Joyce, said that Qantas Airways Ltd. did not serve India but had used Jet to strengthen its presence beyond Singapore to Indian destinations. He wants a new partner for the big market.

"He was an important partner and we had a lot of traffic on them," he said. "Just about all major Indian carriers have contacted us because they know that there is a lot of traffic that we can provide them. We had a dialogue these past days with four different carriers on possible agreements. "