Jet Airways plans to amalgamate its low-fare operations under the Jet Konnect brand. The JetLite brand, the rebraded Air Sahara bought in April 2007, will be phased out completely, although no deadline has been announced.
The decision has been taken, according to local media reports, following a Bombay High Court order that ended legal wrangling between Jet and Sahara India Commercial Corporation, which owned Air Sahara. The court order enables Jet to carry out several business operations, including developing land, selling and leasing back of planes and rebranding JetLite, all of which had come under a cloud because of the litigation.
During the downturn, in 2009 Jet was forced to launch a new brand Jet Konnect to increase capacity on low fare routes since it could not do so under JetLite. Now however Jet Airways is free to run JetLite the way it likes and take outstanding deliveries of planes from Boeing.
Phasing out the JetLite brand will allow it to create some business class seats on low-fare routes, as Konnect aircraft already offer some business class seats at lower fares whereas JetLite flights are all-economy.