Jet Airways financial woes: ‘Evaluating options to raise funds on priority’

Last Thursday, Jet Airways' founder Naresh Goyal said at the company's annual general meeting that he felt “guilty and embarrassed” for the company's shareholders losing their money, given that the airline's shares have fallen sharply due to the financial troubles.

BSE, NSE seek details from Jet Airways for results delay

However, it dismissed the reports of a stake sale or any move to monetise its investment in the frequent flier programme as speculative.

Asserting that all its accounts with lenders are standard and there was no overdue in any of the accounts, Mumbai-based Jet Airways said that it was evaluating various funding options to meet its liquidity requirements on priority. However, it dismissed the reports of a stake sale or any move to monetise its investment in the frequent flier programme as speculative.

“There have been no delays in discharging any of our loan obligations to any of the lenders. In fact, our bankers have issued a certificate to this extent at periodical intervals. The company’s account has been consistently standard over the last several years,” a Jet Airways spokesperson said.

Notwithstanding the company’s claims about its accounts being ‘standard’, the country’s aviation safety regulator is set to begin an inspection of the airline’s functioning from August 27 given the recent developments pertaining to Jet Airways’ financial woes. A senior official at the Directorate General of Civil Aviation suggested that financial stress of an airline could percolate to various other aspects of operations, including maintenance of safety standards. “The airline is aware of the proposed inspection and is prepared for it. At Jet Airways, safety is of paramount importance,” the Mumbai-based airline said in a statement.

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As of March 31, 2018, Jet Airways had an adjusted net-debt of Rs 8,082 crore. DGCA also recently completed Air India’s inspection due to issues being faced by the flag carrier about timely salary payments to its employees and grounding of a number of aircraft due to lack of spare parts.

Jet Airways, in which Abu Dhabi-based Etihad holds 24 per cent stake, said on August 9 that its board of directors deferred the matter of consideration of the unaudited financial results for the June quarter due to the board’s audit committee needing more time to evaluate the results. On Monday, the airline informed BSE that it was still in process of finalising the date of announcing its financial results. “The recent news on deferment of our quarterly results was mainly due to certain additional time requested by the management to its audit committee to complete its accounts which was accepted. There are no differences of opinion whatsoever between the company and its statutory auditors,” the spokesperson said. Audit firms BSR & Co (KPMG affiliate) and DTS & Associates are the statutory auditors of the company.

Last Thursday, Jet Airways’ founder Naresh Goyal said at the company’s annual general meeting that he felt “guilty and embarrassed” for the company’s shareholders losing their money, given that the airline’s shares have fallen sharply due to the financial troubles. Civil aviation secretary RN Choubey said last week that the government was monitoring the developments at Jet Airways. He said that while airlines generally approach the ministry when they are in difficulty, Jet Airways had not approached the government yet.