Aircraft

Indian carrier Jet Airways confirms that it is cutting 10% of domestic capacity owing to significant over capacity in the country's aviation market.

Details of specific routes that would be affected were not given by Jet Airways Executive Director Saroj Datta, who said that the Indian domestic market is suffering from an overcapacity of between 30-35%.

He adds that the Boeing 737 aircraft that will be freed up by the cuts will be used for flights to the Middle East, namely to the Saudi Arabian cities of Jeddah and Riyadh, and Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates.

He says that there are no plans to cut flights at the company's low cost carrier Jet Lite due to its limited number of aircraft and flights.

As for the 10 Boeing 787-8s that Jet Airways has on order, Datta says the company has no immediate plans to defer deliveries that are scheduled to begin in 2013.

"We've made no definitive decisions about deferring our 787 deliveries, as this is still a few years away and dependent on economic conditions."

Jet recently warned of a difficult year ahead and its operating statistics for the fiscal year ending 31 March show its capacity growth was greater than demand, leading to a fall in the passenger load factor.

ASKs rose 30% and RPKs increased 27% leading to a 1.5 percentage point decrease in the passenger load factor to 67.7% from 69.2%.