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Economy down, no friendly skies for Jet in the US
Published on Mon, Apr 14, 2008 at 14:09 in 
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JET SET GO: Goyal promoted Jet Airways, flies to three destinations in North America.
Mumbai: India's largest and first private carrier to fly to the US, Jet airways, sees passenger travel slowing down due to fears of a slowdown in the US economy.
The land of opportunities seems to have disappointed Naresh Goyal. Goyal promoted Jet Airways, flies to three destinations in North America, which include, JFK and Newark airports in New York and the Toronto Pearson airport in Canada. It also plans to fly to San Francisco.
However, with North America making up for 29 per cent of its international passenger base, it wants to wait and watch before expanding any further.
“In USA, we already have reached good presence and we will let that mature before we take any major expansion steps because there is a possible recession in the US certainly has consequences on the travelling behaviour,” says CEO, Jet Airways, Wolfgang Prock-Schauer.
Jet claims its low operating costs vis-a-vis American carriers, leaves it in a better position to counter the slowdown in passenger travel in America. It also claims, this rough pocket won't delay its flight to break even in the next 18 months.
“We maintain that it will take 12-18 months but we will see some slowdown because of the dollar value,” says Wolfgang.
Those effects could also delay Jet's ambition to let international operations contribute to 50 per cent of its revenues by the end of fiscal 2009.
With inputs from Kenan Machado
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