A day after the Jet Airways’ board approved a resolution plan for the beleaguered airline, its top brass said on Friday that the carrier would resume capacity growth.

“As the transition to a fully restructured network is complete, current liquidity challenges addressed, deployed capacity will resume its growth track. This will include long-haul wide-body routes as well as increasing the utilisation of Boeing 737 fleet to previous levels,” said Jet Airways CEO, Vinay Dube, during a conference call with analysts.

Rationalising ATR

The past few months saw the airline withdraw some of its domestic and international routes and redeploy capacity on more profitable routes. This included “rationalisation of loss-making ATR network, moving short-haul international operations from wide-body capacity to more profitable 737 flying, concentration of capacity, enhancing density and hub connectivity,” the CEO explained.

The withdrawal of these routes led to the airline witnessing 6.9% fewer passengers in the third quarter (Q3) of financial year 2019 compared with the year-earlier period.The airline reported a loss of ₹732 crore during Q3. The airline, however, did not provide details of the bank-led provisional resolution plan which includes a consortium of banks led by the State Bank of India acquiring a majority stake in Jet Airways to meet a funding gap of ₹8,500 crore.

“Greater detail can only be revealed once it receives approval of all stakeholders,” said the airline’s chief financial officer Amit Aggarwal.