Jet Air to retire $600 mn debt this year

The Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet Airways, India's top carrier by passenger numbers, today said it will retire $600 million (Rs3,228 crore) of debt by the end of this fiscal through sale and lease-back of some of its aircraft.

''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 told analysts in a post-earnings conference call.

The total debt on the company's balance sheet stood at Rs12,000 crore at the end of the September quarter against $2.4 billion in the June quarter, he said.

''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.

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.

Jet Airways is looking at more full service operations rather than focusing on its budget carrier arm Jet Konnect for the peak season, Ravi Shankar added.