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Pilots at Jet Airways have been told by their union to put off a planned strike to give its management and key lender State Bank of India time to strike a deal to keep the debt-laden airline flying, ANI reported Sunday. The National Aviator's Guild had earlier advised more than 1,000 pilots who have not been paid for 3 months to stop flying from Monday. With more than US$1.2b of bank debt, Jet is battling for survival and has yet to receive a loan of about $217m as part of a March rescue deal. An urgent meeting to discuss the Jet situation was held Friday, which was also attended by the country's aviation secretary, Pradeep Singh Kharola. After the meeting, Kharola said the carrier had money to operate 6-7 planes over the weekend and that the lenders would have to decide how many jets it could fly after Monday afternoon. <br/>

Jet Airways disclosed Thursday that 10 more of its aircraft have been grounded due to lease payment defaults. The latest disclosure takes the number of aircraft grounded for lease defaults to 80, out of a fleet of 120 before the groundings started earlier in the year. While that would indicate that the airline still has around 40 aircraft in service, reports from India indicate that there are as few as 14 aircraft in service. Unlike previous disclosures, Jet’s statement to the Indian stock exchanges did not repeat its well-used line that lessors were supportive of its restructuring efforts. A total of 11 737s from Jet’s fleet have now been deregistered by the DGCA. Aergo Capital, however, has withdrawn requests to deregister 7 ATR 72-500s. <br/>