Jet Airways moves further close to SkyTeam

India's largest carrier by international passenger traffic, Jet Airways is showing some development in its long haul network. The airline is upgauging existing Europe capacity by deploying Boeing 777-300ER. Better financial performance over the last few quarters fueled by softening of oil prices is believed to be prompting Jet Airways to expand long-haul capacity after really long time. The airline is taking back six Boeing 777-300ER from Etihad following lease expiry between August and November this year. In March this year, Jet Airways had moved its European scissor hub from Brussels to Amsterdam and entered into extensive codeshare partnership with three SkyTeam members Air France-KLM and Delta on European and trans-Atlantic routes. Now this partnership is being extended through Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. These moves are bringing Jet Airways really close to SkyTeam airline alliance. Jet already share close partnership with major SkyTeam members like Alitalia, Garuda Indonesia, Kenya Airways, Korean Air and Vietnam Airlines. Now, this will be interesting to see whether Jet moves further close to SkyTeam and outright joins the alliance in near future.

Jet Airways-Delta-Air France-KLM codeshare network from March 2016

Following the success of codeshare arrangement via Amsterdam Airport Schiphol from March this year, Delta Airlines and its trans-Atlantic joint venture partner Air France-KLM is trying to replicate the same via the other European hub at Paris Charles de Gaulle. As per the new agreement Delta will codeshare on Jet Airways's Paris-Mumbai flight and ten new Indian destinations including Coimbatore, Goa, Indore, Jaipur, Kozhikode, Lucknow, Mangalore, Pune, Thiruvananthapuram and Vadodara all via Mumbai. While Jet Airways will place its 9W code on Delta's all 13 North American routes via Paris-Charles de Gaulle namely Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, Minneapolis, Newark, New York, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Raleigh-Durham, Salt Lake City and Seattle. Jet Airways will additionally codeshare on 12 destinations on Air France's North American network including: Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, Washington in the U.S.; Vancouver and Montreal, Canada; and Mexico City, Mexico. 

According to media reports, beyond the codeshare arrangements Jet Airways is currently negotiating a revenue sharing joint venture with Delta and Air France-KLM group and an initial memorandum of understanding is believed to be signed in this regard. The proposed joint venture is also expected to have clause of reciprocal frequent-flyer benefits. If the joint venture really comes into effect which is most likely, there will be a total of six daily flights between India and Europe at the present capacity including three flights by Air France two by Jet Airways and a single flight by KLM. Air France on its own metal operates to three destinations in India (Delhi, Mumbai and Bengaluru) while KLM only flies to Delhi. Delta used to fly to Mumbai in various combinations but had withdrawn the service in March 2015. Jet Airways is known to have plans to add more Indian points to its European scissor hub in Amsterdam and now to some extent in Paris Charles de Gaulle. South Indian cities including Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad are believed to be front runner to get non-stop Europe links by Jet Airways. Previously Jet had served Chennai-Brussels route during the peak of Brussels operations.

Now it will be interesting to see whether Jet Airways ventures into new European destinations from its home base in Mumbai. Mumbai-Rome sector (or Milan) could be ideal for Jet Airways, following upcoming China Airlines's exit from Delhi-Rome in December, as it has close commercial tie-ups with the Italian flag-carrier Alitalia (Etihad equity alliance member and founding member of SkyTeam). Jet had previously operated Delhi-Milan flight between December 2010 and February 2013. Alitalia too is part of the trans-Atlantic joint venture and therefore a potential partner for Jet Airways, apart from that both Jet and Alitalia as part of Etihad equity alliance. The prospective joint venture between Air France-KLM group and Jet Airways will join the already existing Asia-Europe join ventures between Lufthansa-Air China, Lufthansa-Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines-Singapore Airlines and so. These JVs are indeed designed to grab transit traffic away from the Gulf based ME3 carriers. But interestingly Etihad has 26% stake in Jet Airways and 49% in Alitalia. Therefore it will be interesting to see the dynamics between Etihad, Jet Airways and Alitalia after the joint venture comes into effect.

Starting from the winter 2016 schedule (effective from 30 October 2016), Jet Airways is upgauging the Mumbai-Amsterdam capacity by replacing current 293 seater Airbus A330-300 with 346 seater Boeing 777-300ER possessing first-class cabin. Capacity on the other Indian route to its European scissor hub, the Delhi-Amsterdamroute too is scheduled to be upgaguged to Boeing 777-300ER from early January next year. The same flights (9W 233/234) operates as one-stop between Delhi and Torontovia Amsterdam. So the Delhi-Toronto capacity will also likely to see an increase in seat capacity from early next year. So Jet Airways to convert its Amsterdam operations to all Boeing 777-300ER from early January next year. 

At present Jet Airways has a fairly limited intercontinental network consisting only three points in Europe, Amsterdam, London Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle and it serves only one route to North America between Delhi and Toronto Pearson via Amsterdam. While Amsterdam and London Heathrow see three daily departures each, Paris is only connected to Mumbai with a single daily flight. Jet Airways has started Amsterdam operations only in March this year when the carrier switched its European scissor hub from Brussels to Amsterdam in a move that brought the airline close to Air France-KLM group. At the same time the carrier has withdrawn its last US service to Newark via Brussels. Earlier it used to serve New York JFK too bia Brussels and San Francisco via Shanghai. Jet Airways is also known to have plans to resume US service on its own metal and in this regard the Mumbai-Atlanta flight via Amsterdam is a highly potential route, the route Delta used to fly previously.

Jet Airways's European arrivals in Mumbai

Flight No.	Origin: Departure	Destination: Arrival	Aircraft
9W 231	Amsterdam: 11:20	Mumbai: 00:20+1	A333 B77W (eff 30 Oct)
9W 119	London: 10:05	Mumbai: 00:05+1	B77W
9W 123	Paris: 11:30	Mumbai: 00:40+1	A332

Jet Airways's European departures from Mumbai

Flight No.	Origin: Departure	Destination: Arrival	Aircraft
9W 232	Mumbai: 02:45	Amsterdam: 07:55	A333 B77W (eff 30 Oct)
9W 120	Mumbai: 02:25	London: 07:00	B77W
9W 124	Mumbai: 02:45	Paris: 08:20	A332

In the winter schedule effective from 30 October, the Paris flight is being re-scheduled from the present afternoon departure from Mumbai to an early morning departure in sync with Jet Airways's other Europe departures. The carrier is actually streamlining its intercontinental network with an all early morning departures from Mumbai to provide better connections to its Asian network including Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, Colombo, Dhaka, Hong Kong, Kathmandu and Singapore.

Jet Airways's Asian arrivals in Mumbai

Flight No.	Origin: Departure	Destination: Arrival	Aircraft
9W 67	Bangkok: 21:35	Mumbai: 00:35+1	B738
9W 251	Colombo: 21:25	Mumbai: 00:05+1	B738
9W 275	Dhaka: 12:15	Mumbai: 15:10	B738
9W 75	Hong Kong: 19:50	Mumbai: 00:10+1	B77W
9W 11	Singapore: 19:50	Mumbai: 22:50	B77W

Except Dhaka all other Asian arrivals in Mumbai are aligned with Jet Airways' early Europe morning departure bank from Mumbai. The airline flies multiple daily frequencies to Bangkok Suvarnabhumi (triple daily), Colombo (double daily) and Singapore (double daily) from its Mumbai hub including Airbus A330-200 operations to Bangkok but the current Bangkok connection sees narrow-body flight on both-ways. Ideally the A332 flight on the Mumbai-Bangkok route should be accommodated in the Europe-Asia connections (at least one-way) to provide better on-board experience. We may also see Dhaka flight being re-scheduled in the near future and it is indeed possible to provide both-way convenient connection with a single daily flight as Jet Airways operates a total three daily flights to Dhaka, one each from Delhi, Kolkata and Mumbai.