 "Jet Airways is looking at exciting opportunities: Cramer Ball")
India's rapidly growing air traffic has attracted a lot of investors into the sector, while falling oil prices have given a boost to profitability. After having given up its leadership position in the domestic market a few years ago, Jet Airways is charting a growth path yet again, as its financial performance has improved. In an interview with Aneesh Phadnis and Malini Bhupta, the airline's outgoing CEO Cramer Ball gives a sense of Jet Airways strategy.
There has been a renewed focus by Jet Airways on domestic market. Can you tell us what your plans are?
I think there was a certainly a view when I joined (Jet Airways) we had lost focus on domestic (market). And that has certainly turned around. We are very focused on the domestic market. We have increased our daily flying, our metro to metro flying. We are intensely focused on domestic as much as we are on international routes.
Jet Airways fleet has more or less remained constant at 115 aircraft. Is there a possibility of incremental fleet addition with dry leases?
Our focus has been on better utilisation of aircraft and that has a direct impact to bottomline. We are not averse to looking at more narrow body options. Our order book is for 75 Boeing 737 Max aircraft and we have an option of another 50 planes. We took an aircraft on dry lease in December and that was incremental addition. So there is a always possibility of dry leases.
Six Boeing 777 aircraft will return to fleet upon end of lease this year. What is plan regarding the planes. Does the airline plan to deploy or lease them again. Is the airline adding flights to London?
We are looking at number of very good options at moment. London slots are a constraint. But there are enough opportunities.
The number of international destinations in Jet Airways network has has more or less remained the same. Is there a plan to add new destinations?
There are significant opportunities within 3-6 hours from India. We are looking at frequency and capacity increases and also new destinations in Asia. But the key is about profitable operations. With consistent performance in all key parameters we are in a different situation from where we were 24 months ago.
There is a criticism that Jet Airways has turned into a feeder carrier for Etihad. How do you respond to that?
It is incorrect to say we are a feeder airline for Etihad. Abu Dhabi is just one of the destinations in our international network. If you look at the transfer traffic, Etihad gives us more business than what we give to them. The traffic growth between us continues to grow at triple digits and last quarter there was a growth of 90 per cent. The value is clearly there and that is a key part of our network strategy
Jet Airways is pulling out of US market. What is the plan regarding US market?
Our partnership with KLM and Delta gives customers more choice over Amsterdam and gives us more network. Out of Amsterdam we have a choice of seven destinations which are different from Brussels. But that does not mean that US is off the table for us. Partnerships are the key in airline business. We can fly to every destination ourselves. Emotionally it is great thing to do. But logically from a business perspective it does not make sense.
Is there a plan to raise more equity or debt from Etihad?
As of now there is no such plan. However we will continue to look at opportunities to refinance debt and reduce cost of debt.