Naresh Goyal in Mumbai on Saturday. (Fotocorp)

Mumbai, April 29: Jet Airways has decided to start a flight academy to groom its own pilots in order to deal with the acute shortage of trained cockpit crew.

?We want to start our own flight academy to create our pilots from scratch,? Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal said here today. ?We want all our flights to be flown by Indian pilots and what better way than to train them ourselves.?

Like all other airlines in India, Jet is facing a severe shortage of trained pilots. The expatriate pilots often do not have the same technical expertise and English language skills as their Indian counterparts and the good ones get poached anyway.

Jet is also planning to launch a cargo airline soon. ?We are not looking at foreign equity capital for that. We are in the process of studying the freight business to see how we can get into it and make some money,? Goyal said.

The aviation boom has seen an increased number of airlines taking to the skies and has severely dented the profit margins of most. Rising fuel costs and lower load factors have dented most bottomlines. ?The cargo business can actually act as a cushion for the loss of profitability,? Goyal added.

Talking about the Jet-Sahara merger, Vic Dungca, member of the board of directors, said, ?We have already paid Rs 500 crore to Sahara at the time the deal was announced. We have also given another Rs 100 crore to Air Sahara to keep their operations running recently. Around Rs 1,500 crore has been deposited in an escrow account, the last date for which was due to expire in March and has since been extended by another 90 days.?

The enterprise value of Air Sahara has been put at Rs 2,500 crore, he added.

Jet plans to acquire 30 aircraft at the cost of $2.5 billion by 2009.

The airline plans to add 10 each of Boeing 737, Boeing 777 and Airbus to the fleet by 2009. It plans to raise $500 million through foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) and another $300 million will be raised through a follow-on public offer.

The airline recorded a net income of Rs 5693.73 crore for the year ended March 31, 2006 compared with Rs 4338.01 crore in the previous year, a jump of 31 per cent. Net profit stood at Rs 452.04 crore for the year ended 2006 compared with Rs 391.99 crore a year ago.

During the quarter ended March 31, net income stood at Rs 1625.30 crore compared with Rs 1203.36 crore in the year-ago period. Fourth quarter net profit stood at Rs 227.12 crore against Rs 133 crore a year ago.