VistaJet moves to repossess Indian billionaire Anil Ambani's Bombardier jets

Malta-based private aviation company VistaJet, owned by Swiss billionaire Thomas Flohr, has taken formal legal steps to repossess 2 Bombardier jets it leases to Anil Ambani's Reliance Transport and Travel Pvt. Ltd, filing an irrevocable de-registration and export request with India's aviation regulator that, if approved, would reduce the company's fleet to just 2 aircraft, the Free Press Journal reported on April 21.

VistaJet filed an Irrevocable De-registration and Export Request Authorisation, known as an IDERA, for 2 Bombardier Global 5000 jets registered in India as VT-JSK and VT-VIV. The 13-seater long-range business jets are based in Nanded and operated by the Reliance Group subsidiary.

India's Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) is now in the final stages of approving the request. The regulator has already dispatched communications to airport operators and fuel suppliers to verify whether any outstanding dues exist against the 2 airframes before clearing them for departure.

What the IDERA means

The IDERA is a powerful legal instrument under the Cape Town Convention, an international treaty designed to protect the rights of aircraft lessors and financiers. Under its terms, once an IDERA is invoked, the host country's aviation regulator is obliged to de-register the aircraft and facilitate their export. The convention is built specifically for situations like this: where a lessor wants to recover its asset from a lessee and cannot wait through prolonged domestic court proceedings.

The filing of an IDERA typically signals financial friction between a lessee and a lessor, often arising from payment defaults or material violations of lease terms. VistaJet did not respond to the Free Press Journal's request for comment.

Reliance's version is sharply different. A senior official from the Reliance Group told the Free Press Journal that RTTL had not defaulted on any payment. "RTTL has never defaulted on any payment to VistaJet and we have also received a no-dues pending certificate from VistaJet," the official said, adding that the de-registration request stemmed from a change in VistaJet's business plans rather than any payment failure on RTTL's part.

A fleet in sharp decline

If the DGCA approves the export of VT-JSK and VT-VIV and the 2 Bombardier Global 5000s depart to Malta, RTTL will be left with only 2 aircraft: a Dassault Falcon 2000 and an Embraer Legacy 650. The Falcon 2000 seats 10 passengers; the Legacy 650 seats 10 as well. Both are significantly smaller and shorter-ranged than the Bombardier jets, which have a transcontinental reach of approximately 9,630 kilometres.

The reduction would mark a stark descent for a unit that, at its peak, operated a significant fleet of heavy jets. The fleet has been progressively reduced over the years to the current 4 aircraft, and the Bombardier departure would halve that again. In 2018, 1 of the aircraft from Anil Ambani's fleet made the flight to Dubai to bring back the body of Bollywood actress Sridevi after her death.

The Reliance ADAG context

Anil Ambani, younger brother of Mukesh Ambani, once commanded a business empire valued in the tens of billions of dollars after the two brothers divided their father Dhirubhai Ambani's conglomerate. His allocation included telecom, financial services, infrastructure and entertainment businesses. Most of them have since collapsed or are in severe distress. Multiple Reliance ADAG subsidiaries have defaulted on loans from Indian and international banks. Several are under investigation by Indian law enforcement agencies.

The aviation unit RTTL represents one of the more visible remnants of the former empire's lifestyle infrastructure, though the VistaJet dispute and the narrowing fleet illustrate how far the operational capacity has contracted. Whether the Cape Town Convention process resolves in RTTL's favour or in VistaJet's will depend on what the DGCA discovers about outstanding dues during its verification process.

Aviation experts cited by the Free Press Journal separately flagged an irregularity in the DGCA's handling of the paperwork. The announcement letters from the regulator showed the date of receiving the de-registration request as May 2026, even though the request was filed in April, suggesting the documentation was future-dated, which the experts described as a procedural lapse.