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Lenders to India’s troubled Jet Airways may have to wait a little longer to sell a stake in the carrier, as they need more clarity from the country’s central bank, the Business Standard newspaper reported Sunday. Jet, India’s oldest private carrier, is saddled with more than $1b in debt, compounding its financial woes and forcing it to ground most of its fleet. After Jet failed to convince potential investors, including its largest shareholder Etihad Airways, to bail it out, Indian banks decided to take a majority stake in the carrier. Last month, Jet’s lenders, led by State Bank of India agreed to bailout the airline in a complex deal that involved the banks taking a majority stake, while seeking out an investor to help revive the company’s fortunes. Jet’s lenders Thursday said they plan to seek expressions of interest in the airline from potential investors from April 6 and that all submissions from interested parties are expected to be completed by April 9. But this process may be delayed as the Reserve Bank of India is yet to examine the issue of debt to equity conversion, the paper said, citing a source.<br/>

Aer Lingus recorded an 8% rise in the number of passengers it carried last month versus March 2018. The airline, which is now owned by International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG), carried 880,000 passenger in March, as against 815,000 for the same month a year earlier. Load factor rose by 0.8 percentage points during that period to 81.3. For the year-to-date, passenger numbers were up 7.5% to 2.2m with load factor down 1.5 percentage points to 73.3. IAG said it carried 5.7% more passengers overall last March. Passenger volumes rose to 9.2m from 8.6m while load factor rose by 0.6 percentage points to 83.7%. IAG traffic in March, as measured in revenue passenger kilometres, increased by 5.1% versus the same period a year ago Capacity measured in available seat kilometres increased 4.4%.<br/>