Jet Air suspends Mumbai-San Francisco flights

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Jet Airways said on Friday it would discontinue flights on its Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco route effective Jan. 13, 2009 to cut down low-performing flights.

Passenger flights between India and San Francisco will now be served via Jet's London gateway in cooperation with partner airlines, the company said in a statement.

"We are suspending the flight on a temporary basis...because of the current economic situation we had to rationalise our network and take out the low-performing flights," said Sudheer Raghavan, chief commercial officer.

Raghavan said the airline was continuously monitoring all its routes, but there were no plans to discontinue any other flights for the moment.

Jet has dropped several loss-making domestic routes and shelved plans for its discount carrier subsidiary, JetLite, to fly to the Middle East and Southeast Asia.

State run Air India however has not cut down on any of its international routes, its spokesman said.

"We have had no reduction in flights either internationally or domestically," he said.