Jet willing to ''cooperate'' with Air India to grab the NRI market

Jet Airways is willing to ''cooperate'' with Air India to jointly capture a larger share of international air traffic as it does with other global carriers, company chairman Naresh Goyal said in New Delhi on Tuesday 4 September.

Goyal was in the capital to announce the launch of Jet''s new five-flights-a-week service to Toronto via Brussels from Wednesday 5 September. "If Jet and the new Air India cooperate, we definitely can get a 50 per cent market share," he said, as union civil aviation minister Praful Patel listened with rapt attention.

Goyal said Brussels will be the hub for his carrier in Europe, and it will serve at least 50 destinations worldwide, either on its own or through partnerships with other carriers. Some of the destinations planned over the next few months include San Francisco, New York and Vancouver.

He said Jet had cornered a 23 per cent market share on the London-Delhi sector since it started its service two years ago. He added that he expects a similar response from Toronto, which has one million people of Indian origin.

JetLite, the erstwhile Sahara Airlines that is now Jet''s low cost arm, Goyal told the media, would complete restructuring its finances and break even before the end of this financial year.

He said JetLite will continue to operate as a separate entity, so as to bring its operating cost down. "We are buying two Bombardier CRJ-900 aircraft to augment its fleet," he added.