Jet Airways pulls out of Delhi–Milan from 1 Feb 2013

Jet Airways has been out on a carnage, trying to examine and take a hard call on the routes and making sure only profitable routes survive. Yes, that is a dream for all airlines to be able to dictate prices and still have their planes full on the places they fly. However, Jet Airways has had to bite the bullet and they’ve recently withdrawn from Mumbai – Johannesburg and Chennai – Brussels – New York JFK, while still maintaining presence in New York via the BOM-BRU-EWR flight they operate.

However, airlines frequently need to invest money in building a route, and those things work sometimes, and not at others. There is cost of hiring staff, setting up a station and developing business. After all, there are already other incumbent airlines who offered an option before you came, right?

Jet Airways recently reduced the frequency on the Delhi – Milan flight to 5 a week, a route it only started two years back in December 2010. And now, as per a trade journal in Italy, they’ve decided to can the route from 1st February 2013. Even AirlineRoute.net confirms that they have stopped reservations for flights from 1st February 2013. After all, the route was plagued with all the wrong decisions, such as a flight slot that brought you into Milan in the evening.

While people are not going to be happy about this route cut, I appreciate that they are cutting their losses quickly rather than becoming a bottomless pit like national carrier Air India, where profits will not come in this generation perhaps!

I also think that all of this is preparing for some planes to be deployed on an alliance led network, but we will speak about it when that happens!

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Ajay Awtaney is the Founder and Editor of Live From A Lounge (LFAL), a pioneering digital platform renowned for publishing news and views about aviation, hotels, passenger experience, loyalty programs, travel trends and frequent travel tips for the Global Indian. He is considered the Indian authority on business travel, luxury travel, frequent flyer miles, loyalty credit cards and travel for Indians around the globe. Ajay is a frequent contributor and commentator on the media as well, including ET Now, BBC, CNBC TV18, NDTV, Conde Nast Traveller and many other outlets.

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Comments

  1. Yes, my point was that when you don’t have loads (as they didn’t on their Milan flights) it makes sense to offer them to partners for awards. Remembers partners pay them hard dollars for redemption. It’s not an obligation, it’s just smart inventory and revenue management. Not that I’d expect the bozos at Jet to understand that.

    • @abcx, all of last year 9w was very stingy about award space, but on this route I’ve seen award seats being available on a lot of dates. have you tried lately?

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