The airline making money off grounded Boeing 737 MAX jets – MENAFN.COM

The airline making money off grounded Boeing 737 MAX jets – MENAFN.COM

(MENAFN - Gulf Times) Airlines follow a pretty simple formula for success "” fill as many seats and fly as many hours as possible, and keep a young fleet. One Indian budget carrier is going another way to drum up income "” not flying. SpiceJet Ltd hasn't flown any of its Boeing Co 737 MAX jets for more than 27 months, after two deadly crashes operated by other airlines led to a global grounding. While most other major markets apart from China have cleared the MAX to fly again, SpiceJet seems in no hurry to get it back in the air, and not just because there's less demand to use the jet because of the pandemic. India's second-biggest budget carrier booked other income of Rs10. 9bn ($150mn) in the seven quarters through December. That was the amount it expected to get in compensation from Boeing for not being able to fly its 13 MAX aircraft, helping the company to trim its losses during deeply challenging times. Given the planes remain grounded, the figure is likely to rise when SpiceJet reports results for the year through March. SpiceJet is the only Indian airline that operates the MAX. With firm orders for