Jet Airways crisis: Indian finance minister assures efficient bidding

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01:22

India's Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has promised to look into the issues that led to Jet Airways ceasing its operations.

The country's once largest private airline halted all flight operations indefinitely last Wednesday evening after lenders, led by the State Bank of India, declined to extend more funds to keep the carrier going.

The temporarily halt in operations has left about 20,000 employees in the lurch, forcing them to face an uncertain future as a question mark hangs over the revival of the airline and payment of salaries.

The carrier has been teetering for weeks after failing to receive a stop-gap loan from its lenders. The cash-strapped company is currently saddled with 1.2 billion U.S. dollars of bank debt. Jet Airways' lenders have invited bids for the sale of stakes in the company, starting on May 7.

"We made some requests of him (Indian Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley). We requested him to have an open, transparent, and efficient bid process. He assured us of that. He, in fact, told us that as part of the expression of interest, there were four parties interested in Jet Airways and that we would have an open, transparent, and efficient bid process," said the CEO of Jet Airways Vinay Dube.

Dube also said he had asked the minister to keep the employees with Jet Airways and hoped to offer them at least a month's or more worth of their salaries.

"We requested him to make sure that we have an engaged employee-base as part of this bid process. It's important for us to have our employees where they are. He certainly said, he would look into that. He said he would certainly look into that and we are very pleased that he heard us out," said Dube.

The Indian government plans to form a committee to temporarily allocate takeoff and landing slots left vacant by the grounding of Jet Airways flights.