Jet Airways shares rise 5% after airline plans to fly 40 more aircraft

Jet Airways share price rose over 5 percent on Wednesday to a near 10-week high, after a top aviation ministry official ruled out grounding more planes and said the carrier would fly 40 more aircraft by the end of April.

Following the immediate funding support of Rs 1,500-crore lifeline, the troubled airline--saddled with a debt of more than $1 billion-- has now set an 'ambitious' target of flying 40 additional aircraft and aims to have 80 per cent of its fleet flying by April-end.

"Jet is in talks with leasing companies to restart operating several of its grounded aircraft, and assured the government that it will not ground any more aircraft and strive to increase the seat-capacity in coming weeks," Pradeep Singh Kharola, secretary at India's civil aviation ministry, told in a news conference on Tuesday.

After meeting with Jet officials, State Bank of India Chairman Rajnish Kumar and DGCA chief B.S. Bhullar, he quoted, "They will approach the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for the next one month to get the schedule approved for the 35 planes."

Yesterday, the company also released the statement post market hours regards to changes as per the resolution plan quoting "Naresh Goyal and Anita Goyal to step down from the board and Goyal reducing stake in Jet Airways from 50.5 per cent to 25 per cent."

Naresh Goyal who also ceases to be the Chairman would be left with equity of 25 per cent even as the Abu Dhabi based Etihad would see its holding reduced to half at 12 per cent, with the lenders getting over 50 per cent ownership with fresh issuance of 11.4 crore equity shares. The release also added about the bidding process to be initiated by lenders for sale/issue of shares to new investors which is expected to be completed in June quarter.

After Jet Airways' share opened at a gain of 5.17 per cent at Rs.285.00, it furthermore touched an intraday high of Rs 286.70 at 5.79 per cent hike against the previous close of Rs. 271.00 on BSE.

On NSE, the stock opened 4.7 per cent above the previous close of Rs. 270.90 at Rs. 283.70 and scored another 5 points to the intraday high of Rs. 287.

The stock has been consecutively rising for the last 4 days and risen 28.67 per cent in the period.

Jet Airways'share price was already trading higher than 5, 20, 50, 100-day moving average.As of today, it has moved above its 200-day simple moving average.

Where the sector gave negative returns of 1.01 per cent, Jet Airways gave positive 3.51 per cent returns outperforming the former for the intraday trade.

It has given returns of over 45 per cent , 25 per cent and 22 per cent in the period of six months, one month and one week respectively.

With 180.37 lakh shares changing hands on NSE and 16.5 lakh shares on BSE, the volume stands close to the 10-day average volume for both the platforms.

(Edited by Rupa Burman Roy)

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