Jet Airways

Naresh Goyal started Jet Airways in 1993, the year India opened its skies to private carriers after decades of state monopoly. He had run a ticketing agency since the 1970s and turned that into a full-service airline that flew on time, served hot food, and looked like the international carriers Indian travellers had only seen abroad. Through the 2000s Jet became the country’s largest private airline, took over rival Air Sahara in 2007, pushed into international routes to London, Singapore and the Gulf, and at its height operated a fleet of around 124 aircraft. For a stretch it was the airline Indian business travellers defaulted to, the premium name in a market Air India had let go stale.

The economics stopped working. Jet carried debt above $1 billion while fuel prices rose and the rupee weakened, and low-cost carriers founded a decade after it — IndiGo, SpiceJet, GoAir — took the price-sensitive domestic passengers it depended on. By early 2019 it could not pay lessors, fuel suppliers, or its own staff, who went three months without wages; aircraft were repossessed until only about five were still flying. On 17 April 2019 lenders led by State Bank of India refused further emergency funding and Jet grounded all flights, then entered insolvency. The brand did not die cleanly. The Jalan-Kalrock Consortium won the bankruptcy auction in 2021 and spent years in tribunals promising to restart the airline, but never put in the full first funding tranche, never paid worker dues, and never got it airborne. On 7 November 2024 the Supreme Court ended it, setting aside the ownership transfer and ordering liquidation — five years grounded, then formally dead.