Oman Air seeks talks to expand network in India

Oman Air will not lease aircraft after November 22, when the last Airbus A330 leased from Jet Airways is returned. The airline took delivery of its third A330 this week and will add four more to its fleet by March 2011 thereby removing the need for leasing, CEO Peter Hill told Emirates Business.
Having reached capacity on all its Indian routes, Oman Air will enter talks with the Indian Government to grow its network in its strongest market, he said.
The airline expects available seat kilometres in 2009 to grow by 27 per cent on last year and will launch flights to Tanzania and Kenya.
However, the airline’s next major announcement will come at Dubai Air Show, which starts on November 15.
What are your financial needs for 2009-2010? How are you raising finance in a credit-starved environment?
Over the next two years, starting this month, we will be financing purchase of seven A330s for a total value of $700 million (Dh2.5 billion). We will raise funds from international banks and the same will be supported by ECA (Export Credit Agency of Europe). Oman Air will also raise cash for certain infrastructural requirements for which amounts cannot be quantified at this stage. We raise our finances from commercial banks and have a whole portfolio. The A330 we received last week was a financial release from Citibank. We are still talking to banks to decide who we are going to raise the funds from on the fourth aircraft.
We have had no problems with financing probably because we are government-owned. So they are pretty confident we are not going to default. In fact, there is a queue of lenders, which is nice.
11/10/09 Sean Davidson/EmiratesBusiness 24-7, UAE

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Categories: Foreign Oct 2009