Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson) has reportedly approached Naresh Goyal over the sale of his stake in cash-strapped Jet Airways (JAI, Mumbai International), the Financial Express has written. The American carrier did not comment on the report.

Goyal currently holds a 51% stake in Jet Airways. According to the newspaper's sources, Delta Air Lines would also be interested in buying the 24% stake currently held by Etihad Airways (EY, Abu Dhabi International). Delta Air Lines, Jet Airways, and Air France-KLM have had a close commercial partnership since 2017.

The Indian law allows for full control of domestic airlines by foreign entities, but foreign airlines cannot hold more than 49% of shares in an Indian carrier.

Simultaneously, Tata Sons is reportedly negotiating the acquisition of Goyal's 51% stake. The Indian conglomerate already controls 51% in Vistara (UK, Delhi International), a joint venture with Singapore Airlines, and 49% in AirAsia India (Bangalore International), a partnership with AirAsia Group.

The Business Standard has also reported that Jet Airways was struggling to pay all outstanding bills to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and aircraft lessors. In order to decrease the burden, the carrier might return five to seven Boeing jets to owners. Jet Airways currently leases 101 out of 117 aircraft it operates, the ch-aviation fleets module shows.

"The Company is actively engaged with all its partners including lessors and airport operators and regularly providing them updates on efforts undertaken by the Company to improve its liquidity," Jet Airways responded in a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange.

Live Mint has recently reported that Jet Airways was looking at selling and leasing back all sixteen aircraft it currently owns. The transaction could net some USD800 million for the cash-strapped carrier.

Jet Airways is currently also soliciting bids for a 49.9% share in its loyalty programme in order to raise cash to improve liquidity. The remaining 50.1% share of JetPrivilege is owned by Etihad Airways. As of June 2018, Jet Airways had a gross debt of INR86.2 billion rupees (USD1.2 billion), while its accumulated losses stood at INR108.8 billion rupees (USD1.5 billion).