Indian to scout for 70 seater regional jets

Bangalore, Nov 2: National Carrier Indian is scouting for regional jets to enhance connectivity between metros and small cities with 70 seater aircraft.

Indian which had already ordered for 43 A320s, the first of which had already delivered, would soon be taking on lease five A320s for its own operation and six regional jets for its subsidiary Alliance Air to step up capacity and connectivity, Indian Chairman and Managing Director Vishwapati Trivedi said while launching Indian service to Male from Bangalore today.

The Board had already given its permission and Indian would be looking for regional jets offered by various aircraft makers including Bombardier of Canada and Embraer of Brazil. Already a few private airliners in India were using regional jets. A decision would be taken in about a fortnight's time, he added.

He said depending upon availability Indian was also planning to take on lease six to 12 ATRs for shorter hauls within the country during the next six to eight months.

He said two wide body A330s were also being leased with delivery expected in mid 2007.

Mr Trivedi said that the Indian aviation sector had been going through a turbulent period during the last 18 months due to huge addition to capacity and emergence of a number of airliners. Stating that the ground infrastructure was not adequate to meet the growing numbers, he said steps had already been initiated by the Government to improve infrastructure in major airports besides 35 medium airports which were being up graded on a top priority basis.

These efforts would fructify by 2010, just before the Commonwealth Games.

Indian Director (Commercial) Anita Khurana said that Bangalore was the fourth largest in Indian's network operating 132 flights a week. It carried 1400 passengers per day from Bangalore besides 40 tonnes of cargo. The revenue contribution from the city to Indian was Rs 387 crore.

She said that Indian was planning to promote Health Tourism packages in Maldives.

Indian had a network of 54 domestic destinations and 18 international destinations. It was exploring the possibility of starting operations to Australia, UK, South Africa and China. Indian hoped to register a net profit of Rs 68 crore during 2005-06.

UNI