SpiceJet plans to fly abroad from June

New Delhi: Low-cost air carrier SpiceJet aims to begin flying abroad from June, to Southeast Asian and South Asian countries.
“We do not plan to fly to longer destinations. We plan to go slow on the international plans,” said Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Agarwal.
It has applied to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation for the permission. The qualifying condition is a fleet of 20 aircraft and five years of operating domestic flights, which it will complete by March 23. It has 19 aircraft currently and will add another in March. It will add four planes by the end of 2010.
SpiceJet will be the country’s first low-cost airline to fly abroad, if one excludes Air India Express, a part of Air India and a lower-cost, short-haul operator which only operates abroad. GoAir, the other LCC completing five years of flying in India, has no plans to fly abroad and has only eight aircraft.
Paramount Airways also completes five years in 2010 and aims to fly abroad from August but has only five aircraft, way below the minimum of 20.
“We currently utilise our aircraft for 12.30 hours (daily) and going international would help us increase (this) by two hours, as we can utilise it during the night,” said Agarwal.
06/02/10 Surajeet Das Gupta & Mihir Mishra/Business Standard

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Categories: Foreign Feb 2010, New Feb 2010, spicejet Feb 2010