Jet Airways founder Naresh Goyal is understood to have agreed to step down as the chairman of the beleaguered airline as part of a resolution plan that will see the promoter’s stake falling to to a tad over 20 per cent.

This was one of the key points that emerged from a meeting that was held among the lenders, led by the State Bank of India, the airline’s promoter and Etihad on Wednesday.

Sources, however, indicated that the proposed resolution plan did not make significant headway with consensus eluding on some of the issues.

While these are expected to be addressed over the next few days for which more meetings could be held, it is learnt that Etihad, which has a 24 per cent stake in the crisis-hit airline, is averse to immediately infusing around Rs 700 crore.

Meanwhile, Reuters reported that Goyal has agreed to step down as the chairman of the board. A spokesperson of the airline declined to make any comment.

Planes grounded

The airline continues to see the grounding of more aircraft because of the non-payment of lease rentals, apart from several flight cancellations.

Its website showed that around 60 flights scheduled for Thursday were cancelled because of “operational reasons”.

The company on Thursday said six aircraft had been grounded over the non-payment of amounts outstanding to lessors under their respective lease agreements.

The carrier is engaged with all its aircraft lessors and regularly provides them with updates on the efforts undertaken to improve its liquidity, the airline said in a filing.

On Wednesday, it had disclosed that seven airplanes were grounded because of the same reason.

On February 23, the airline had said that two planes had been grounded. This followed an announcement made to the stock exchanges on February 7 that it had grounded four of its aircraft on account of the non-payment of lease rentals

While market circles are of the view that the proposed resolution plan should be quickly implemented, shares of the airline ended nearly a per cent lower at Rs 222.80 on the BSE on Thursday. During intra-day trade, the share dived 6.15 per cent to Rs 211.

On the NSE, the shares closed 0.35 per cent lower at Rs 223.50.