JET to invest heavily to fuel growth

Mumbai, Apr 16 (UNI) As part of its comprehensive expansion plans, Jet Airways will invest 3.7 billion dollar in aircraft to fuel its growth and enhance its international operations.

Its expansion plans include luanching new seats, new inflight service, new staff uniforms and a new corporate identity, Jet Airways Chairman Naresh Goyal today said.

The deliveries for the first 20 wide-body aircraft, 10 Boeing B777-300ER and 10 Airbus A330-200 will commence by the month-end.

The estimated value of these aircraft is said to be 2.1 billion dollar.

''Jet Airways believes in continuously redefining and enhancing the customer experience. This multi-million dollar investment in its international products reflects the same. Jet Airways' vision is to emerge among the top five carriers globally in the next few years,'' Mr Goyal stated.

''We have been working on these plans for the past two years.

Having changed the way people fly in India, we will now take our very own brand of service and style, the spirit of new India, to the world,'' he said.

In addition, Jet Airways also holds option for further additional aircraft of each type and have recently signed an agreement to purchase 10 Boeing B787 Dreamliners aircraft, valued at 1.6 billion dollars. Their deliveries are likely to commenmce from 2011.

The new Jet Airways Boeing B777 will be configured in three classes, eight first class, 30 premier class and 274 economy seats, and would initially operate on the Mumbai-London route.

This would be for the first time that Jet would be offering a first class service, and would create on board a newly-designed first class suite.

Jet also plans to launch a daily service to New York via Brussels after the further deliveries of the B777 aircraft.

The company hopes to make these services operational by August this year.

In addition, a daily service to San Francisco via Shanghai with B777 is also slated for winters this year.

The Airbus 330 aircraft will be configured in two classes - 30 premiere and 190 economy seats - and will operate daily for New Delhi and London services.

These aircraft will also be deployed on flights from India to markets like Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Johhnesberg and Toronto via Brussels.

The new premiere lie flat beds on both aircraft types, are all new and represent the absolute latest in airline seat technology.

The premiere seats also provide an over-sized table, laptop power, telephony, sms, e-mail and live text news to deliver a flying office for those premiere passengers wanting to work.

Interestingly, Jet Airlines will be the first airline in the world to install this new economy seat with a seat pitch of 32.

Developed by Panasonic, the new state-of the-art eX2 system will deliver an unparalleled and unique range of in-flight entertainment options to Jet Airways passengers, whatever class of service they choose to fly.

UNI