Boeing eyeing Vistara as customer for wide-body aircraft

The US aircraft maker Boeing is eyeing Vistara as one of the potential customers for its wide-body aircraft, amid the Tata-SIA run full service carrier's plans to go international by the winter of 2018.
Singapore Airlines, which holds 49 per cent stake in Vistara (besides Tata Sons who owns majority 51 per stake) has most of the Boeing's wide-body planes in its fleet.
"When Vistara comes into market, obviously we will make an aggressive pitch to say that we have the best planes," Dinesh Keskar, senior vice-president for Asia Pacific and India sales, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said.
He was responding to a question whether Boeing was in talks with Vistara for selling its wide-body planes.

According to Boeing's Current Market Outlook released yesterday, India will take deliveries of 2,100 new planes worth USD 290 billion in the next 20 years, which is the "highest forecast" for the country.
At present, Delhi-headquartered Vistara is an Airbus operator. It has currently 15 Airbus A320 leased planes, including two A320 Neos.
SIA has bought from Boeing its all types of planes, both narrow body and wide-body ones and half of them are flying, Keskar said, adding, "obviously when they (SIA) are advising Vistara or working with them, they already know about our aircraft."
Vistara currently operates over 600 weekly flights to to 19 domestic destinations.