Jet Airways new hub?

Neelam Mathews

Oct 31, 2012

Jet Airways may soon be moving its international operations to Munich, Aerospace Diary learns. While Brussels Airport was geared to handle 6 Jet flights a day with seamless activity, the carrier's expansion plans for adding more flights connecting Bangalore, Hyderabad and perhaps Chicago and Washington DC, will make the terminal small for handling the six existing plus four proposed flights, it is learnt.

We hear that most of the senior managers have not been informed about the change.

Since Munich is a busy airport, Jet will face considerable competition there as Brussels was a virtual monopoly. For example, Chennai-Brussels-JFK will now be MAA-MRU-JFK. "Now Jet cannot use 332s. Compare that to Lufthansa's 380... which will at a lower cost...Hence they should add capacity to BRU," an analyst says.

"They (Jet)  should have connected to further points long ago..... Since 2007 they have been operating the same flights. Till date, they haven't connected their proposed flights despite doing so well," he adds. 

Jet's Airline partner Virgin Atlantic may soon be announcing its entry into an alliance. Could it be Star? In which case, Jet gets a definite advantage being in Munich with Star member Lufthansa being the leader of the pack. Presently, JetPrivilege members can earn and redeem JPMiles on qualifying Virgin Atlantic flights.

Jet has applied for 35 new flights to Munich, we hear.