JetSetGo to manage aircraft owned by HNIs in Middle East; to lease planes from Gift City
NEW DELHI: Leading Indian charter player JetSetGo has now diversified into managing aircraft owned by high net worth individuals in the Middle East. The company, that currently owns 10 business jets and has been managing aircraft for HNIs in India, is looking big time at Ahmedabad’s Gift City to lease more planes for both its own business here as well as for its customers in the Gulf.
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“We are now managing 28 aircraft for HNIs in India and the Middle East where our company takes care of everything from providing crew to maintenance, getting flight despatches, route clearances, overflying permissions and inflight amenities. We have converted these planes into revenue generators for the owners by leasing them in the time when it is not required for use by them,” JetSetGo founder Kanika Tekriwal told TOI.
While the HNI clients in Middle East are mainly mega infra developers, those from India are biggies from the pharma, infra and renewable energy space.
The Modi government’s vision to bring aircraft leasing to India through the Gift City has come as a major opportunity for both non-scheduled and scheduled operators in India.
“Leasing aircraft from anywhere abroad, except Ireland, involves paying a withholding tax of 10%. Leasing from Ireland has its own expenses. Thanks to the tax holiday in Gift City, it makes sense for us to lease planes from there. Two of our 10 planes have been leased from there and we plan to get 10-20 more via that route. We also plan to get our clients in the Middle East to lease planes from Gift City,” Tekriwal says, adding JetSetGo was the first company to lease an aircraft from Gift City.
She says the biggest comfort for Gift City lessors is the ease of getting their planes back in the event the company defaults in payment of rentals. After the collapse of some big airlines in India over the last decade, reposing planes had become a big issue with foreign lessors.
JetSetGo’s fleet ranges from the 18-seater Global 6000 to the six-seater Cessna Citation CJ2 with list price ranging from $50 million to $3 million. “These aircraft are used for charter purpose and also evacuations that includes mainly flying patients to some city for treatment. The demand for charters has seen a huge spike during Covid with HNIs who used to travel first class in commercial airlines earlier now preferring to travel in business jets with friends and family or even solo,” Tekriwal said.
