Airline News
SpiceJet plans 250-jet order, Air India puts 9 Dreamliners on sale
October 16th 2015
What a difference a year can make. Indian LCC SpiceJet is making money again after facing bankruptcy less than a year ago, and plans to order up to 250 new aircraft worth billions of dollars in the next five months, its chairman, Ajay Singh, told the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Tuesday. Read More »
Chennai-based SpiceJet is in advanced stages of negotiations with Airbus and Boeing for narrowbody jets, and separately with ATR, Bombardier and Embraer to buy turboprop aircraft, Singh said. "We intend to place substantial orders, both for large and small regional aircraft, and we hope that both can be done in this financial year," Singh added, specifying the order would include between 100 and 150 B737s or A320s. Meanwhile, another person at SpiceJet, who asked not to be named, said the turboprop order would be for around 100 frames.
Singh took a controlling stake in SpiceJet earlier this year, saying he could rescue the carrier struggling with sluggish demand growth and high fuel prices. Since he took over, the LCC has posted profits for two consecutive quarters as sales improved, fuel prices fell and load factors exceeded 90%. "We will have a vastly improved performance in the (July to September) quarter," Singh said, adding SpiceJet had no immediate plans to try to raise money by selling a stake to a foreign airline. "I am not interested in selling at this time," he said. "There is plenty of cash in the business."
Meanwhile, state-owned and notoriously unprofitable Air India made the headlines this week as it put nine of its 21 B787-8s on sale to raise over 7,000 crore rupees ($1.12 billion) to fund the acquisition of new aircraft, and to repay bridge loans availed for when originally purchasing these Dreamliners.
If successful, the flag carrier would lease the -8s back under an operating lease for a period of up to 12 years with a three-year extension option, just like it did with its remaining twelve Dreamliners, the airline said in an Invitation of Offers document. The airline has fixed a reserve price of not less than $120 million for the 787s acquired in 2015, and $120 million for the frames inducted in 2014, it said.
In other Indian aviation news, PTI news agency on Monday reported as many as 62 Air India and Jet Airways pilots have left the two carriers in a little over a year, with the majority of them joining Rahul Bhatia’s IndiGo. While private carrier Jet Airways has lost 30 pilots in 15 months to IndiGo, state-owned Air India has seen the migration of 32 pilots in the past year, industry sources said.
Sources told PTI the "flexible" contracts offered by IndiGo were one of the reasons, apart from higher pay, for the pilots quitting Air India and Jet. IndiGo offers seven different types of contracts, providing greater flexibility, as against a single conventional contract by most Indian carriers.
