Brands
Jet-Uber tie up for smart travel
MUMBAI: With a clear focus to continuously enhance guest experience, Jet Airways has announced a strategic association with ride-hailing major Uber.
With this first-of-its kind initiative in the Indian aviation space, the airline will partner with Uber to offer its guests greater choice by facilitating their travel to/from the airport once they have booked a ticket on the Jet Airways app. This path-breaking initiative from the airline will help guests by offering a seamless solution from doorstep to doorstep, with the benefit of two leading players in the travel space – Jet Airways and Uber.
Guests booking their flights on the app and using Uber for the first time will be also benefit from a discount of Rs 150 across their first three rides by using the promo code JETUBER.
Jet chief commercial officer Jayaraj Shanmugam said, “Our partnership with Uber for a comfortable and seamless travel experience between their homes or offices and the airport, reflects our ambition to leverage technology for enhancing our guest experience. More importantly, it is also a meeting of minds, where two leading, technology savvy and innovation-driven organisations have joined hands with an objective to create and promote new and fulfilling travel experiences for their guests in the long term. The association is especially meaningful since both Jet Airways and Uber have substantially similar guest profiles and needs, which will facilitate greater collaboration.”
Uber India & emerging markets chief business officer Madhu Kannan said, “We are excited to partner with Jet Airways to make traveling in India even more seamless. Through this partnership, Jet Airways’ guests across 29 cities will be able to request their Uber when they book their flight. That removes any last-minute hassles when heading to the airport and makes for a smooth arrival in your destination city. Uber is all about making travel easy and convenient, and this partnership exemplifies that.”
The cab booking feature will be available to all Jet Airways’ guests in the cities where Uber currently operates in India while booking their travel itinerary with the airline on the Jet Airways app.
Brands
Dunkin’ Donuts to exit India as Jubilant FoodWorks ends 15-year franchise deal
The quick service restaurant giant is ending a 15-year franchise partnership with the American doughnut chain, even as it renews its Domino’s agreement for another 15 years
NOIDA: Dunkin’ is done in India. Jubilant FoodWorks Ltd, the country’s leading quick service restaurant operator, has decided not to renew its franchise agreement with the American coffee and doughnut chain, and will wind down its Indian stores in a phased manner before December 31, 2026, bringing a 15-year partnership to a quiet, loss-laden close.
The decision, approved by JFL’s board on March 30, 2026, ends a relationship that began with a Multiple Unit Development Franchise Agreement signed on February 24, 2011. JFL will now evaluate and undertake what it described in a regulatory filing as the “rationalisation and/or cessation of certain operations and/or sale, transfer or disposal of assets and/or assignment or transfer of franchise rights,” all in consultation with Dunkin’s brand owners and strictly within the terms of the original agreement.
The numbers tell the story bluntly. In the financial year 2024-25, Dunkin’ India posted a revenue of Rs 37 crore against a loss of Rs 19 crore — a haemorrhage that was always going to test the patience of a parent company recording revenues of Rs 6,104 crore and a profit of Rs 194 crore in the same period. Doughnuts, it turns out, were never going to move the needle.
The contrast with JFL’s handling of its other marquee franchise could hardly be sharper. Even as it walks away from Dunkin’, the company has just doubled down on Domino’s, signing a fresh Master Franchise Agreement on March 31, 2026, granting it exclusive rights to develop and operate Domino’s Pizza stores in India for 15 years, with an option to renew for a further 10.
JFL, incorporated in 1995 and promoted by the Bharatia family, operates a network of more than 3,500 stores across six markets — India, Turkey, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Its portfolio includes Domino’s and Popeyes on the global side, and two home-grown brands: Hong’s Kitchen and COFFY, a café brand in Turkey.
For Dunkin’, India was always a stretch. The brand never quite cracked the cultural code in a market where filter coffee and chai command fierce loyalty and where the doughnut remains, at best, an occasional indulgence rather than a daily habit. Fifteen years, mounting losses and a parent with better things to spend its capital on was always going to be a difficult equation to solve.
The doughnut has had its last day. The pizza, however, is staying.
