By IANS,
Madurai (Tamil Nadu) : With supply of seats trailing passenger demand, low-cost carrier SpiceJet plans to double its fleet size by 2013 and add more destinations- domestic and international- to its route map.
“The expansion- fleet and routes- will not involve any major investment from the company,” Director and Chief Executive Kishore Gupta told reporters after the airline’s inaugural flight from Chennai landed here Monday.
The country’s fourth largest airline added Madurai to its route map, connecting Mumbai and Delhi via Chennai.
“Currently our fleet size is 22 aircraft. We will be increasing the fleet size with a mix of sale and lease back as well as going in for pure lease. We will be getting six more Boeing plans by Jan 2012,” said Samyukth Sridharan, chief commercial officer.
“In addition, we are also planning to lease around six planes. These apart, the company has placed an order for 30 aircraft with Boeing and their deliveries will start happening.”
Sridharan said the company may take two aircraft on its books at a later stage but primarily the expansion will be by leasing.
Asked about the new destinations, Gupta said the airline would launch two international flights next month. These would be to Kathmandu from New Delhi Oct 7 and to Colombo from Chennai Oct 9.
Gupta said the international routes may contribute around 10 percent to the company’s topline.
“The demographic profile in destinations are similar to ours. As such there will be no additional costs involved. The operations will be on a hub and spoke model. Our Colombo flight will leave after our other flights to Chennai land,” added Sridharan.
He said the company will first fly to SAARC countries and then look at other destinations.
“We have rights to fly to Dhaka and Male. That will happen over a period of time. On the domestic route, except to two major cities – Thiruvananthapuram and Nagpur-, we fly to all the other 15 major Indian cities. We will connect the remaining two cities,” Sridharan said.
He said the company has become networth positive and debt free and hopes to close this fiscal with a turnover of Rs.2,800 crore.
The airline reported a profit after tax of Rs 55.22 crore for the quarter ended June, 2010, compared with a profit of Rs 26.34 crore for the same quarter the previous year.
SpiceJet, which carried 65 lakh passengers during calendar 2009, is planning to increase it to 85 lakh.