Spicejet set for a massive expansion of its all India services

Kolkata, Jan 22 (UNI) Spicejet, one of the fastest growing lowcost private airlines in the country, today announced its plan for a massive expansion both in terms of increasing the number of flights and the aircraft to cater to the increasing demand even from non core sectors.

Briefing newsmen here today about the company's plan till next year, Spicejet Vice-President(Marketing)Sanjay Kumar said with the acquisition of 15 more 737-800 Boeing aircraft at a cost of more than Rs 150 crores they would increase their number of daily operations from 68 to 260 flights to over 200 destinations across the country by 2008.

Presently, Spiceject had been operating with a fleet of 14 new 737-800 aircraft to most of the major cities in the country, Mr Kumar said adding that, however, by next year they were planning to add about 100 more destinations to its present operations as they were expecting to get the delivery of seven new aircraft by December 2007.

Elaborating his plan for the Eastern sector from where Spicejet was presently operating six daily flights to four destinations,Mr Kumar said another daily flight to Hyderabad from Kolkata would be introduced on February four.

"At present Spiceject operates daily flights from Kolkata to Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bhubaneswar and Portblair", he said adding that plans were afoot to introduce similar flights to Dibrugarh and Agartala from later this year.

To another query Mr Kumar said though Spiceject was presently enjoying a market share of less than ten per cent, following the acquisition of several new aircraft and increasing the fleet, the airlines market share was likely to go up by 20 to 22 per cent by next year with the passenger load factor crossing the 88 per cent mark round the year.

About any plan to fly overseas destinations in line with some other private flyers, Mr Kumar replied in the negative saying the company's present focus was to consolidate the dometic market by enabling more and more people to fly at affordable cost.

UNI