Wolfgang Prock-Schauer (right) with Giovanni Bisignani in New Delhi on Wednesday. (PTI)

New Delhi, Sept. 24: Jet Airways, which plans to raise up to $800 million from the market in the next two years, will hike its fares during the festive season.

“We are looking to raise the fares during the festive season. No concrete decision has been taken yet. But the increase will not be very high because of competition,” said Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, CEO of Jet Airways.

Prock-Schauer said the airline would continue to be in the red this year because of the spike in fuel prices and the fall in passenger traffic.

“Fuel is the one key factor that’s hitting us hard,” said Prock-Schauer.

“The airline hopes to come out of the red and break even by March 2010,” he said.

Airlines in India are likely to post a combined loss of $1.5-2 billion in the current fiscal, the biggest outside the US, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

For some airlines, fuel price accounts for almost half of their operating costs, IATA chief Giovanni Bisignani said during an interactive session organised by the CII here today.

“India is among the most expensive places to buy aviation turbine fuel,” Bisignani said. A kilolitre of the fuel costs Rs 73,600 in Mumbai compared with about Rs 46,500 in Singapore, he said.

On Jet’s participation in a maintenance, overhaul and repair facility, Prock-Schauer said, “We are still evaluating the option.” The airline is now focusing on its international and domestic expansion programmes. In the next two months, Jet will get two wide-bodied Airbus A-330s.

Airlines woe

The directorate general of civil aviation has ruled that airlines should collect the user development fee at the time of issuing tickets and subsequently remit the same to the airport operators, thus adding to the woes of the bleeding air carriers.