The Hindu : Kerala News : Air-India to finalise fleet acquisition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 17, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Air-India to finalise fleet acquisition

Staff Reporter

National carrier to purchase 68 aircraft at a cost of Rs. 30,000 crores

THIRUVANATHAPURAM: : Air-India will soon finalise the proposal for fleet acquisition estimated to cost Rs. 30,000 crores, the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Air-India, V. Thulasidas, has said.

Under the project, the national carrier will purchase 68 aircraft to fly to new destinations and to cater to the flights of Air-India Express to the Gulf and South East Asian destinations. The first aircraft is likely to join the fleet by the middle of 2006, Mr. Thulasidas told a press conference on Friday.

The fleet acquisition project is the biggest ever contract in the history of Air-India and in the Civil Aviation sector of the country. The CMD said it would need at least four to five years after the contract was signed to get all the aircraft in the fleet.

Of the 68 aircraft, 18 would be for Air-India Express, being set up under Air-India Charters, a fully owned subsidiary owned by Air-India, that would commence operations to the Gulf from April 29. The remaining 50 aircraft would be for Air-India. The national carrier had doubled its fleet in the last three years mainly by procuring leased aircraft.

Air-India and Air-India Express would be able to expand its operations further in the Gulf countries, except Saudi Arabia, and to various destinations in the South East Asian countries such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok once the aircraft joined the fleet.

Non-stop flight

The national carrier has also plans to introduce non-stop flights to the United States as part of expanding its operations to more destinations. Air-India will introduce direct flights to Toronto and Birmingham via Amritsar from May 15.

To queries, Mr. Thulasidas said the airline had decided to retain flights from Thiruvananthapuram to Dubai in view of the demands put forward by the cargo exporters in the State capital and the consumers in the Gulf. Air-India does not have cargo aircraft in the fleet and the cargo traffic is one-way in the stretch.

"We will find a solution to enhance the cargo capacity in the Thiruvananthapuram-Dubai sector and we would discontinue the flights and replace them with Air-India Express flights in the Thriuvananthapuram-Dubai sector," he said.

The CMD said the airline would retain flights in sectors like Mumbai-Gulf where there was heavy traffic of business class people.

"We would introduce flights in sectors on demand and after assessing the traffic," he said.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Kerala