Airline News
India’s Vistara, Air India, SpiceJet, Jet adjust to market challenges
June 22nd 2015
Singapore Airlines (SIA) chief, Goh Choon Phong, last week told media at IATA’s Miami AGM his carrier and its Indian protégé, Vistara, were finalizing a codeshare agreement, Read More » subject to regulatory approvals, whereby SIA could feed passengers to Vistara’s growing domestic network, at press time covering 237 weekly frequencies using six A320s fitted with business, premium economy and economy cabins. Executives at Vistara told This Week in Asia-Pacific Aviation the carrier’s premium economy sales were still not meeting projected sales, so the start-up might potentially retire the sub-class “for the time being” if the situation continued.
The Times of India has reported money-bleeding Air India was seeking $350 million through external commercial borrowing with Citibank and SBI “for meeting its working capital requirement for spare parts,” a senior official at the airline was quoted, effectively improving airframe utilization by “an average one or two hours a day”. The flag carrier is in the process of replacing its ageing 19 ex-Indian Airlines A320s with new frames. It has struck a deal with China Aircraft Leasing Company for the delivery of five aircraft, the first of which arrived last February with the remaining four due in October. Also, it will sign ten-year dry leases for 14 A320neos with Kuwait’s Aviation Lease and Finance Company (ALAFCO) for delivery between April 2017 and March 2018.
At SpiceJet, the budget carrier is set to receive two wet-leased A320s, its first Airbus aircraft, after some of its B737-800 lessors decided to withdraw their aircraft following SpiceJet’s near collapse last December. Delhi-based SpiceJet is finally on a recovery trajectory after it downsized and made major management changes. The ten-year-old budget carrier reported a net profit of 225 million rupees ($3.5 million) for the three months ended March 31, reversing a 3.2 billion rupees loss in the year-ago period. In a statement, SpiceJet chairman, Ajay Singh, said the results “indicated a recovery was in progress” and was evidence of an “ongoing revival” at the airline.
A Jet Airways spokesman has told India’s Economic Times the carrier has “indefinitely” shelved plans to enter the cargo business, citing bad market conditions. The Mumbai-based carrier was originally planning to commence freighter services between Delhi, Bangalore, Hong Kong, Hanoi and Singapore, using a wet-leased A330F from equity partner Etihad Airways.
