Jet Airways’ shutting down another 7 stations including 4 North-East stations

Jet Airways is undergoing a very large network reassessment for the past couple of weeks. We have extensively covered the international and domestic changes, in so much detail that I may have been able to sleeptalk about the Jet Airways entire schedule by now. Nothing is off limits. Middle-East flights, domestic operations, it is all on the chopping block if it is not making money or expected to make money.

This is a U-turn on the earlier strategy for Jet Airways from six months ago, where they were investing in the North-East, and they actually launched a lot more flights there, which were industry firsts.

Jet Airways is going to do another round of station consolidations in February 2018. As a result, they will be shutting down 7 domestic stations. Here are the routes that will get cut next year early

  • Jorhat
    • New Delhi to Jorhat from February 10 (launched March 2018)
    • Mumbai to Jorhat from February 9 (launched March 2018)
    • Guwahati to Jorhat from February 9 (launched March 2018)
  • Aizawl
    • New Delhi to Aizawl from February 10 (launched March 2018)
    • Guwahati to Aizawl from February 9 (launched March 2018)
    • Kolkata to Aizawl from February 9 (launched March 2018)
  • Silchar
    • New Delhi to Silchar from February 9 (launched March 2018)
    • Guwahati to Silchar from February 9 (launched March 2018)
  • Imphal
    • Guwahati to Imphal from February 9 (launched March 2018)
  • Vishakhapatnam
    • Mumbai to Vishakhapatnam from February 8
  • Madurai
    • Mumbai to Madurai from February 8
  • Raipur
    • Mumbai to Raipur from February 8
    • New Delhi to Raipur from February 12
Jet Airways last flights from Aizawl to New Delhi, Guwahati and Kolkata on February 9

Last flights from Aizawl to New Delhi, Guwahati and Kolkata on February 9

Apart from these, Jet Airways is closing down the following routes,

  • Guwahati to Bagdogra from February 9
  • Bengaluru to Mangalore from February 9
  • Jaipur to Chandigarh
  • Vadodara to Indore
  • Vadodara to Jodhpur
Jet Airways Vadodara to Indore

Jet Airways Vadodara to Indore N/A since December

Jet Airways is also reducing frequencies on the following routes,

  • Bengaluru to Chennai reducing from 49x weekly (43x weekly ATR72 flights) to 26x weekly flights (20x weekly operated by ATR)
  • Bengaluru to Hyderabad from 3x daily to 2x daily from Feb 9 then 1x daily from March 31
  • Mumbai to Kozhikode from February 7 reducing to 4x weekly (1,3,5,7) and going back to daily from March 30
  • Mumbai to Kochi reducing from 21x weekly to 18x weekly (9W 2407 won’t operate on 2,4,6)
Jet Airways Mumbai to Kozhikode

Jet Airways Mumbai to Kozhikode

In addition to this, Jet Airways is restarting operations to Port Blair. Jet Airways will operate daily flights on Chennai to Port Blair route from December 21, 2018. Although tickets are only available in full fare.

Jet Airways Chennai to Port Blair

Jet Airways Chennai to Port Blair

What is my take on this new development?

When I first put together the routes, I immediately remembered one thing. If you guys don’t remember, we covered Jet Airways adding 144 domestic flights earlier this year. That was a smart move but now almost all routes that were started are shutting down.

Secondly, if you notice the following routes which are seeing a frequency reduction or are facing the axe like,

  • Bengaluru to Chennai
  • Bengaluru to Hyderabad
  • Jaipur to Chandigarh
  • Vadodara to Indore
  • Vadodara to Jodhpur

are all ATR 72 routes. If you haven’t read my take on Jet Airways Q3 results, then go ahead and read it as I have analysed Jet Airways ATR 72 operations. It seems like Jet Airways is accelerating the retirement of its ATR 72 fleet.

Following this, Jet Airways have drastically reduced their presence in two markets.

Kerala

  • Kochi 2x daily Mumbai to Kochi and 1x Daily New Delhi to Kochi
  • Kozhikode Less than a daily flight from Mumbai
  • Thiruvananthapuram 1x Daily flight from Mumbai

Jet Airways have completely closed down International operations from Kerala w.e.f February 9, 2019. The last flight to be axed is Thiruvananthapuram to Dammam from February 9.

Jet Airways Middle-East route network

Jet Airways Middle-East operations

North East

  • Kolkata 7x daily from Mumbai, 2x daily from New Delhi and 1x Daily to Dhaka
  • Guwahati 2x Daily from Mumbai, 3x Daily from New Delhi and 1x daily from Bengaluru
  • Bagdogra 1x Daily from Mumbai and 1x Daily from New Delhi

Will this reduced presence in North East affect Route Dispersal Guidelines set by DGCA? We need to find out.

Bottomline

Jet Airways is closing down 7 domestic stations in one go in February 2019. They have closed down their international operations out of Kerala. Jet Airways have/will close down 9 domestic stations (the other two being Tiruchirappalli and Khajuraho) and 2 international stations (Sharjah and Muscat) in total. This means Jet Airways is down to 37 domestic destinations and 19 international destinations.

What do you make out of Jet Airways network reduction?

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Comments

  1. Sad to hear Jet suspending operations to and from Jorhat. Jet Airways has been flying to Jorhat for over 20 years now, and its really shocking for all when they decided not to fly to Jorhat. Travellers will be greatly effected by this move.

  2. BOM-COK 2x daily brings them on par with AIC which also operates 2x daily. IndiGo and Go will be reign supreme on this route come summer/ and in the cases of the last minute travellers to home for the holidays.

    Really sad to see 9W go this way

  3. Sad to see BLR-IXE go. I have been a regular flier in this route. Flights used to be reasonably occupied.

    Also notice that DXB-IXE route is already gone. Had just flown this route last Saturday. Flight was full in economy, and I was upgraded to Premier. If you try to pick a date after March 31, it shows DXB-IXE flight but with only Flex fare. Any idea why is that?

  4. Jet surely seems to be consolidating their network… btw there never was a BDQ JDH flight… it was a connection via IDR not even same flight number I think…

  5. BLR-TRV vv is now Indigo monopoly , Kerala airports domestic operations are now depend on only Indigo . Really sad state of affairs.

  6. Hi. Thanks for this report.
    Where will they deploy their current fleet after such drastic reduction ? Any idea / presumptions ?

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