Jet Airways to repay $600 mn debt by March

Jet Airways, the Naresh Goyal-led airline, has said it will retire $600-million debt by the end of this financial year and lease back of some its aircraft.

The total debt on the company's balance sheet stood at Rs 12,000 crore by the end of the September quarter, against $2.4 billion in the June quarter

"We have been steadily repaying our debt, both working capital and working capital loans. By March, we expect our debt to come down to $1.96 billion from the current $2.3 billion and we would have repaid over $600 million of our debt this fiscal," Jet Airways Chief Financial Officer Ravi Shankar G said.

With Business Class load factor going up, the company is looking at reconfiguring some of its 162-seater aircraft to add more business class seats, he added.

"We are looking at more sale and lease back options in the current quarter in addition to those done in the previous two quarters. This will result in cash surplus and consequentially reduction in the working capital loan as well as lowering of interest cost going forward," Ravi Shankar said.

Jet Airways is looking at more full service operations in lieu of Jet Konnect for the peak season, Shankar added.

"We are also looking at leasing some of the A330s, which are grounded, over the next few weeks for 12-18 months period. These aircraft are expected to fetch a rental of $1 million per aircraft per month," company's vice president for commercial strategy and investor relations KG Vishwanath said.

With inputs from PTI