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| SpiceJet plans to fly abroad from June |
| Surajeet Das Gupta & Mihir Mishra / New Delhi Feb 06, 2010, 01:08 IST |
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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.
The airline has board approval to raise $75 million (Rs 345 crore), if needed, to fund expansion. “We do not need money in the near future but we can keep it for rainy days. We have not started negotiations for the loan,” he said.
SpiceJet had a profit of Rs 108.9 crore in the third quarter ended December 31, 2009, from losses of Rs 17.96 crore during the same period last year. The airline registered 36 per cent growth in income from operations to Rs 642 crore, from Rs 472 crore during the same period last year.
The New Delhi-registered airline operates 127 daily flights and had a market share of 12.9 per cent in the last quarter, the second-largest LCC in these terms.
It registered a 56 per cent growth in the number of passengers during the quarter.
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