Govt non-committal on Jet Airways' historical rights on flight slots

DGCA and Civil Aviation ministry informed the Mumbai bench of NCLT that Centre will favourably consider application of slots to revive the company

The government has assured the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) that Jet Airways will have to reapply for the slots after the resolution plan gets approved the insolvency tribunal.

However, counsel Shyam Mehta representing Ministry of Civil Aviation and DGCA didn’t comment on whether Jet Airways will receive the slots that it once enjoyed but said once the new owner, the Kalrock-Jalan consortium, applies for the new slots, the government will consider the same.

The counsel representing the winning consortium Kalrock-Jalan said that the government should consider the principle of historicity while granting slots to Jet Airways, meaning it should get back the old slots which it held in its earlier avatar.

The NCLT bench directed both DGCA and the Ministry of Civil Aviation to file their affidavit on granting slots to Jet Airways and also recorded the statement of the regulator and the ministry that they have no objection to the resolution plan of Kalrock-Jalan Consortium. The enxt hearing will be on 9 March.

Availability of slots is a key component in restarting the airline which faced bankruptcy and got grounded more than two years ago. When it shut operations, Jet Airways had close to 700 such slot pairs, including 116 and 214 in Delhi and Mumbai airports.

Airport slot pairs are timings granted by an airport or designated civil aviation authority for scheduled landing and departure of a flight.

The bankrupt airline that last flew on April 17, 2019, underwent an ownership change through a successful resolution process under the insolvency and bankruptcy laws of the country.

Lenders to the airline approved a Rs 1,000-crore bid by a consortium of UK-based Kalrock Capital and United Arab Emirates-based entrepreneur Murari Lal Jalan to revive and operate the airline.

In a recent interview with Business Standard, the winning consortium’s owner Murari Lal Jalan said that he doesn’t foresee any challenge in respect to availability of slots.

“Covid has made things better for us. The capacity of most of the constrained airports have improved and in our discussions with the civil aviation ministry, they have told us that whatever we need, we will get it,” he said.