Jet Airways, India’s premier international airline, announced that as part of its strategic fleet and capacity rationalization initiative, the airline signed a new lease agreement, for three of its B777-300 ER aircraft with Thai Airways. The three new wide-bodied 777-300 ER aircraft will be dry leased to the Thai National carrier for a period of three years with immediate effect. The lease agreement with Thai Airways is in addition to the four other 777-300 ER aircraft currently on dry lease with Turkish Airlines.
 
According to Mr. Nikos Kardassis, CEO, Jet Airways, "Jet Airways has worked with a focused approach over the last two years to more closely align the airline's deployed capacity with current demand, streamlining costs in the process.  The leasing of three of our wide-body B777-300ER aircraft is among the last steps to fully achieving this objective. With the improvement in the global economic environment leading to a rise in air traffic, Jet Airways is now optimally positioned to return to profitability and sustain stronger growth, both in India and overseas with the introduction of new routes."
 
Jet Airways recently registered impressive growth, over five consecutive months (October '09 - February '10), consolidating its leadership position in the Indian aviation industry. The average international seat factor during this period exceeded 80%, while the average domestic seat factor was an impressive 74% - reflecting continued high demand for the airline’s award-winning world-class product and service.

JetLite, Jet Airways' all-economy subsidiary too has been showing significant signs of a turnaround registering an average of over 18% growth in passenger traffic on a seat factor in excess of 78% for the past four months.
 
Effective April 14, 2010, the airline will launch its planned daily non-stop flight from Mumbai to Johannesburg in South Africa, and a daily flight on the Thiruvananthapuram-Dammam sector, effective March 28, 2010. Domestically, Jet Airways' Konnect service will introduce daily services on the New Delhi-Dehradun and the Kochi-Bengaluru-Ahmedabad sectors, as also five-days-a-week service on the Hyderabad-Chennai-Port Blair sectors, effective March 28, 2010.
 
Jet Airways offers guests seamless connections between several destinations in India and 21 destinations across North America, Europe, Asia and the Gulf, primarily via its major hubs in Mumbai and Delhi.