Constant loses forces JS Air to close its operation in Pakistan

Constant loses forces JS Air to close its operation in Pakistan

JS Air has decided to shut down its operations after several of its customers were scared away towards its competitors. The Air lines clientage fell drastically after a deadly accident killed 21 people nearly a year ago.

Munawar Alam Siddiqui, chairman of JS Air, confirmed the news. Speaking to media in Karachi he said, “We were not making any money so there was no option but to cease the operations a couple of weeks back. All our clients switched
to other service providers.”

JS Air’s downfall started when one of its Bombardier Beach 1900 aircraft crashed minutes after take-off from Karachi airport on November 5, 2010, killing all 21 people on board. The victims included 15 engineers from the Italian
energy firm ENI who were going to Bhit gas field in Dadu.

Siddiqui said that the company kept paying all of its employees, including its pilots, for a year but finally decided to pull the plug when it became clear that demand for JS Air’s services would not revive. “We invested $7 million
to start JS Air and could not even recover that capital investment.”

Another reason for the airline’s demise was the declining number of petroleum geologists travelling to remote oil and gas fields. Energy sector companies formed the bulk of JS Air’s customers.

Industry experts say that all charter services are dependent on the oil and gas companies, which have now rolled back their exploration and drilling operations in recent years due to security concerns.

Bad luck seems to have played its part in JS Air’s demise as well, said Siddiqui, a licensed pilot who has pictures of vintage aircraft and their models all over in his office.

In 2007, it successfully earned rights to start a domestic air service in Sri Lanka. “That was a very good deal for us. We were ferrying passengers and cargo. But then the war against the Tamil Tigers ended, the roads opened up
and there was no need for our aircraft.”

The airline was started in 2005 with three leased Bombardier Beach 1900 aircraft and quickly built up its market share. JS Air is owned by Jahangir Siddiqui and Company, the holding company of the JS Group, which is also a shareholder
in the passenger airline Airblue.

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Posted by Wajahat Javed on Jan 5 2012. Filed under Business, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry