Air India, Vistara scrap agreement to accommodate flyers with cancelled Jet Airways tickets

• Air India and Vistara have terminated the agreement to accommodate flyers with cancelled flights by Jet Airways.
  
• The struggling airline has reportedly grounded about 17 aircraft last week due to non-payment of dues.
  
• Currently, Jet Airways has a debt of ₹82 billion.

As Jet Airways ground seven more aircraft, canceling several flights last week, Air India and Vistara Airlines have reportedly said that they won’t accomodate flyers with cancelled tickets from Jet.

This comes at the time when the airline has cancelled several flights in the past month. As many as 19 aircraft were reportedly held last month due to non-payment issues.

The two airlines have scrapped their ‘Flight Interruption Manifest (FIM) Agreement’ with Jet Airways. The agreement states that when an airline cancels flights under urgent circumstances, other airlines would accommodate passengers while the former reimburses the accommodating airline.

The circular issued by Air India on Friday confirmed that the airlines will not accept passengers from Jet until further notice, while Vistara backed off saying that the cancellations were too frequent, causing commercial loss.

The agreement was an emergency arrangement for passengers, but Jet Airways is using it often, said an aviation industry official.

Jet Airways’ financial woes stem from a debt of ₹82 billion and resulting non-payment of dues.

However, the airline has been in talks with Etihad, and recently struck a resolution plan with Etihad and its lenders led by the State Bank of India.

So far, the Jet airlines has cancelled flights to Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai and Port Blair.

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