Jet Airways revival receives crucial security approval

Jet Airways’ restart, after three years of grounding of the airline, is gathering steam as the airline’s new owners (to be) are working full steam towards the revival. AirInsight has earlier reported on the hiring of a leadership team for the airline. Subsequently, the airline needs to prove to the Indian regulator, DGCA, that it is capable to operate an airline. For this purpose, the airline has also leased its first 737 aircraft, which, incidentally, was an airframe used by Jet Airways earlier before being leased out to SpiceJet. This airframe was repositioned to Delhi recently. Jet Airways revival receives crucial security approval.

The Indian government stipulates aviation as a high-security business, and hence various security clearances are required for any airline to be cleared. One of these is from the Home Ministry, which is responsible for inland security affairs. The Ministry of Civil Aviation has now approved the transfer of ownership/ change in management control of Jet Airways, on the basis of a security clearance received from the Ministry of Home Affairs. AirInsight has reviewed the communication. 

At a macro level, this indicates the approval of the government for the change in ownership of Jet Airways. The security clearance is granted to any aviation business after a thorough background check of the involved parties, and with this in place, the airline has gotten one step closer to the restart, this time, as a Jalan Kalrock enterprise. 

The final approval required for the start of operations is the revalidation of the Air Operators Certificate (AOC). The AOC is an operational requirement and will be granted after the airline and the DGCA jointly conduct the proving flights, where the airline needs to operate flights for around 10 hours. Theoretically, Jet Airways will be able to start commercial operations the day after its AOC is revalidated, however, the airline intends to only get back into the skies in Q3 2022. 

Jet Airways intends to restart with leased aircraft and is reviewing aircraft from Airbus, Boeing as well as Embraer for its long-term fleet strategy, as per media reports. 

Ajay Awtaney

Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe.

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