The Naresh Goyal-led Jet Airways today said it will retire $600-million debt by this fiscal end by way of sale and lease back of some 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 today.
The total debt on the company’s balance sheet stood at Rs 12,000 crore by the end of the September 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 in lieu of Jet Konnect for the peak season, Ravi Shankar added.
The company also said it will soon lease out some of its A330s, which are currently grounded after the airline pulled out from certain international routes.
“We are looking at leasing some of the A330s, which are grounded, over the next few weeks for 12-18 months period.
These aircraft are expected to fetch a rental of $1 million per aircraft per month,” company’s vice president for commercial strategy and investor relations KG Vishwanath said.