Jet Airways looking to sell and lease back aircrafts to repay $600mn debt

Good returns ;November 7, 2012, 10:13 [IST]

Debt laden, Jet Airways has said that it will retire USD 600-million debt by this fiscal end by way of sale and lease back of some its aircraft.

Ravi Shankar G, CFO Jet Airways said, "We have been steadily repaying our debt, both working capital and working capital loans. By March, we expect our debt to come down to USD 1.96 billion from the current USD 2.3 billion and we would have repaid over USD 600 million of our debt this fiscal."

The total debt on the company's balance sheet stood at Rs 12,000 crore by the end of the September quarter against USD 2.4 billion in the June quarter, Ravi Shankar said.

The airline is also looking at leasing some of its A330's which is expected to fetch a rental of USD 1 million per aircraft per year. Besides, airline is looking to further lease A777 whose lease with Thai Airways is set to expire next year.

Earlier in the previous quarter, Jet Airways raised USD 42 million by way of outright sales, and sale and lease back of seven Boeing 737s, which helped it reduce debt as well as working capital loans.