We already know that Jet Airways has a pending order with Boeing for 75 of the 737Max-8 aircraft, a newer, more fuel-efficient version of the bestselling 737 aircraft. This order was put on the books in 2013, and Boeing started delivering these planes last year. They will be delivering the first of these planes to Jet Airways this year in the second half of the year. They will be the first Indian customer to receive the 737Max. The 737 is Boeing’s best selling aircraft, and they recently made a world record delivering the 10000th aircraft to Southwest.
Jet Airways plans to use these planes to replace some of their earlier planes still in service, and over a period of time also for new routes which a plane like this could open up. For instance, there is chatter about the airline exploring opening routes such as Bangalore to Hong Kong and Mumbai to Nairobi with this aircraft.
But in a market with competition ordering 400 aircraft, you can’t help but keep expanding to keep up in the battle for marketshare, or just protect your turf. So, it has been known for a while that Jet Airways has been exploring a second order of 75-100 Boeing 737Max narrowbodies to top-up the earlier one and grow.
Last evening, the airline has confirmed that they have entered into an agreement to buy another 75 Boeing 737Max aircraft. We don’t know yet which variant is the order for, and customers usually have the opportunity to swap the variants in good time.
Boeing 737 Max 8 Jet Airways
Jet Airways is one of the two all-Boeing narrow-body fleet operators in India, with competition such as IndiGo, GoAir, Vistara and Air India operating the Airbus A320 family aircraft.
Bottomline
I’d fully expect a new product inside the 737Max as well, although I hope there is enough space left for passengers to fold their knees in the back of the bus! But, bottomline is, there are a lot more planes coming and that means a lot more destinations opening up in the future.
What do you think of the newest Jet Airways order to Boeing?
They need to put some sort of flat bed configuration in J….at least make it competitive against international rivals especially on the mid haul sectors which is where the MAX will excel. Their direct rivals fly wide bodies into India……think EK SQ CX et al.
Jet has therefore been flying wide bodies to DXB, SIN, HKG from Mumbai.
@Dev, not happening. Let’s not expect a FlyDubai which only has international traffic. For Jet Airways the traffic is mostly inside the country and hence shouldn’t expect a lie-flat product. A CEO does not want to be sleeping on his 2 hours flight with his suit on when he is over for a meeting.
The problem is that whilst they have a large domestic traffic, they also use this plane to mid haul international routes where they offer no advantage in terms of hard or soft product. Granted, a domestic CEO does not need a flat seat but what about the mid hauls. He surely does not want to go on flights stretching I to 5/6/7 hr mark in a big sleeper when he could travel a rival with a better j seat. I believe that there is a big market for Jet to move the aspiring middle class out of India for their holidays / business trips, etc.
@Dev, an airline will not give out more real estate than needed. FlyDubai is the only carrier which did a flatbed because they only have international traffic. Jet has domestic traffic and these planes are largely meant to replace the old fleet first rather than bring in new routes. So I don’t expect flat beds at all.
When are the long haul flights going to be changed to 787s?
JET seriously needs to look into their product in both J and Y on the 737s. The product is sub-par even for a domestic hop let alone a mid-haul trek to Singapore. With all the innovation in slime line seat design I cannot understand why JET hasn’t pursued this? The number of seats is on the lower side compared to other international carriers on their 737s and yet they seem to the most comfortable. Somehow this smacks of incompetent management.
I think it is a nice move by jet owing to the fact that Indian aviation market is rising but our full service airlines are losing market share due to mass dumping of seats by indigo and others. I just wish jet to have ~20% market share by 2025.