Cash-strapped Jet Airways has suspended operations on 13 international routes, including Dhaka, till the end of April.
The airline has suspended its flights from Kolkata and Delhi to Dhaka till Apr 30, Jet announced on Sunday.
Other routes where services have been temporarily withdrawn include Bangalore- Singapore, Delhi-Abu Dhabi, Delhi-Dammam, Delhi-Hong Kong, Delhi-Riyadh, Mumbai-Abu Dhabi, Mumbai-Bahrain, Mumbai-Dammam,, Mumbai - Hong Kong, Pune-Abu Dhabi, and Pune-Singapore.
The airline has grounded seven more planes for non-payment of rentaldues, bringing the number of such aircraft to 54.
Jet, on their Twitter page, apologized and said: “We're dealing 24x7 with refunds due to flight cancellations.”Kindly fill this form,” but that was a little too late for some.
Following the announcement, people immediately took to social media to express their frustration with the delay in response. Prabhat Singh posted on Twitter, saying the airline was unresponsive.
He said: “My flight on 01 Apr 2019 is cancelled. Your numbers don't work. What am I supposed to do? That's some hard-earned money there. Please have the courtesy to at least reschedule my flight.”
Others shared similar experiences. Rutu Doshi said on Twitter: “My @jetairways flight 9W526 from BOM to DXB has been cancelled. I’ve been on hold for more than an hour. How am I going to be remunerated for this inconvenience? I would suggest they at least pick up the phone or call me back or email me. Give me a solution.”
There have been some positive posts too. Manasa said: “Excellent customer service from @vinaybidla #jetairways who helped me reschedule the flight when they had to cancel the scheduled JetAirways flight, a credit to the airline, given everything that is going on.”
The airline has been inundated with questions and frantic travellers trying to get a reimbursement. In their last tweet from their official Twitter page, they directed affected passengers flying in the next 72 hours, to directly contact their travel agents.
The Indian airline has also scaled down the frequency of seven oftheir overseas routes, mostly from Delhi and Mumbai, NDTV reports.
They have now reduced their operations to one-fourth from over 600 daily flights earlier, with just one-third of its 119 fleet being operational.
Their reduced services are on the Delhi - Bangkok route from 3 to 1 daily, Delhi - Kathmandu (4 to 2 daily), Delhi - Singapore (3 to 1 daily), Mumbai - Bangkok (3 to 1 daily), Mumbai - Doha (2 to 1 daily), Mumbai - Kuwait City (2 to 1 daily) and Mumbai - Singapore (3 to 1 daily).
According to industry estimates, Jet has a total debt of Rs8,000 crore in addition to payables such as vendordues of Rs15,000 crore.
The airline has also lost ground in terms of market share, and its pilots and crew are said to be approaching other airlines for employment.
There is a proposed bailout on the horizon. In a rare move, the Indian government is desperately trying to save Jet, despite the fact that it is a private airline. So it is asking state-run banks to step in with a bailout plan, reports BBC.
With elections scheduled to start next month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to stop the airline which employs 23,000 people from collapsing.
The "rescue mission" is headed by the State Bank of India (SBI), the country's largest public sector bank. Its head, Rajnish Kumar, on Thursday said that lenders are close to working out a rescue plan.
