India’s aviation regulator has told the bankruptcy court that it can’t be mandated or directed to grant approvals, permissions and certificates to the potential new owners of Jet Airways.
These include the air operator’s certificate, security clearances, flight slots and bilateral air traffic rights of Jet that have either lapsed or being reallocated among its peers.
Jet stopped operating on April 17, 2020. A show-cause notice was sent to it by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) for suspending its air operator’s certificate. That suspension was stalled because of the corporate insolvency proceedings against it at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
The potential new shareholders, a consortium of London-based investor Kalrock Capital and Dubai’s Murari Lal Jalan, will have to be assessed for substantive ownership and effective control and its directors and key personnel would require security clearance, the DGCA told NCLT.
The consortium had submitted a resolution plan whose implementation, it said was conditional to the regulatory approvals, certification and reinstatement of slots.
The DGCA said operational aspects of Jet including training and maintenance will also have to undergo complete recertification process.
Regarding slots, the DGCA said Jet hasn’t applied for slots in the winter schedule 2019, summer schedule 2020 and winter schedule 2020 and so does not claim the benefit of historic precedence. It also said the slots aren’t the assets of Jet.
It also said that bilateral rights that had been allocated to Jet while it was still an operating carrier, aren’t owned by it but are a national resource.
The resolution plan submitted by the Kalrock-Jalan consortium was approved by Jet’s committee of creditors last October.
