Jet Airways: All Heathrow flights cancelled indefinitely as Indian airline tries to stave off closure

All the airline’s slots at Europe’s busiest airport have been transferred to other carriers

Jet Airways, the Indian carrier mired in debt, appears to have shut down completely.

The airline claims on its website to be operating 48 domestic flights on both Sunday 14 and Monday 15 April.

But the flight status shown for all these departures, and dozens more, indicates that they are all cancelled.

The flight data service FlightRadar24 does not record any Jet Airways departures from the airline’s main base, Mumbai.

The National Aviator’s Guild, which represents more than 1,100 Indian pilots for Jet Airways, says they will refuse to work from Monday onwards – though with no planes operating this appears to be an empty gesture.

The vast majority of the airline’s fleet has been returned to the leasing companies that own the aircraft.

On Friday Jet Airways said it was cancelling all international services for the weekend, up to and including Monday 15 April.

Passengers were invited to assume that the two daily flights from Heathrow to Mumbai, and once-a-day operation to Delhi, would resume on Tuesday.

Jet Airways is using social media to assure passengers hoping to fly that its services will be operating as normal.

On Twitter, Sandeep Sharma asked the airline: ”Can you tell me status of my flight to London on 26th April through 9W 118?”

Jet Airways responded: “The flight is operating as per the schedule.“

But The Independent has made a series of test bookings on both Jet Airways UK routes, from Delhi and Mumbai to Heathrow, all the way through to the end of the “reservation horizon” in March 2020.

None is shown as available. Instead, a message reads: “Sorry. There are no flights available that meet your request. please try an alternative date.”

On Friday a “slot swap” request was made to transfer Jet Airways’ permits to take off and land at Heathrow to Etihad Airways, its part-owner.

The three daily slot pairs are now shown as being used for flights to and from Etihad’s Abu Dhabi base.

Last month, Jet Airways sold a daily pair of Heathrow slots intended for its third Mumbai service to the US carrier, Delta, which will use them for services to Detroit.

Jet also abandoned its short-lived link between Manchester and Mumbai.

The airline has suspended all bookings to Bangkok, Colombo, Kathmandu, Singapore and Hong Kong.

Slot trading: the document showing permission to take of and land at Heathrow transferred from Jet Airways (9W) to Delta (DL) (ACL)

Jet Airways believed to have debts in excess of 80bn rupees (£885m). It is seeking 15bn rupees (£165m) in emergency funding to allow it to continue flying.

On Monday creditors led by the State Bank of India will discuss expressions of interest from private-equity investors, India’s National Investment and Infrastructure Fund and Etihad.

But with each day of total or near-total grounding, the prospects for resurrecting the airline look increasingly remote.

A spokesperson for the airline said: “Jet Airways has cancelled its international operations from 12-15 April 2019.

“The airline is working to minimise guest inconvenience using its 24x7 contact centre, guest relations and the social media response teams, to handle schedule adjustments, in line with defined regulatory guidelines, including offering reaccommodation choices or extending applicable refunds as the situation warrants.”

Under European air passengers’ rights rules, Jet Airways is obliged to buy tickets on other airlines for travellers booked from London, and book hotels and provide meals in the interim.

The airline cannot simply offer seats on its own future flights because of the stipulation that passengers on cancelled flights are entitled to “rerouting, under comparable transport conditions, to their final destination at the earliest opportunity”.

In addition, it is obliged to pay €600 in compensation to each passenger.

The Jet Airways spokesperson said: “The airline’s management and its key stakeholders including its consortium of lenders, continue to work closely towards resolving the current situation.

“The airline regrets the inconvenience caused to its guests.”