Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Airways will finalise a deal to buy a stake in Jet Airways on January 25, according to a television report. If it materialised, it would become the first such investment by a foreign carrier in an airline in India since rules were relaxed last year. A deal may be announced as early as January 25 or by the first week of February, sources were quoted as revealed.
The Gulf carrier could pay up to $330 million for a 24 per cent stake in Jet, country’s second-biggest carrier, a senior government source said earlier this month. The government of India allowed foreign carriers to buy stakes of up to 49 per cent in local carriers in September 2012, a move seen as a boon for India’s debt-laden airlines.
Jet has previously said it was in talks with Etihad, but the terms of the deal were not finalised. Etihad and Jet have a code-sharing agreement, and a tie-up could make Jet a more formidable competitor to state-owned Air India, while strengthening Etihad’s position against Dubai-based Emirates Airline, which carries a big chunk of the traffic between India and the Middle East.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.