Spicejet upbeat

Indian budget carrier SpiceJet does not need to raise capital to fund its aircraft purchases from Bombardier, its chief executive said on Friday.
SpiceJet in November agreed to buy up to 30 Nextgen turboprop aircraft from Bombardier for about USD$915 million. The initial order was for 15 planes.
The company, India's most profitable airline, will fund the purchase through cash in hand and credit, Neil Mills said in an interview. "From our point of view, we are looking at predominantly export credit funding... We are posting profits, options for funding have grown," Mills said. "We are not looking at additional capital raising in the short term." he added. Mills said he expects the company to grow "well beyond" the industry average of 14-16 percent over the next 12-18 months, and load factor to exceed 80 percent in FY11. SpiceJet will add 13 new planes to its current fleet of 25 planes in 2011, Mills said. "I think budget airlines will grow at a big proportion. We are not only growing at the market pace, we are actually outpacing that." SpiceJet, which operates two international routes as of now, may add one or two more by summer, Mills said. "We are not looking too far away from  India. going International is not a prime focus of our business," Mills said.

Jet Airways sees revenue up by 15 - 20 percent in the next 5 years

Indian carrier Jet Airways expects to grow its domestic revenue by 15 percent and international revenue by up to 20 percent over the next five years, the chairman of India's largest airline said on Thursday. The airline expects higher demand driven by increasing affluence in Asia's third-largest economy, but has no plans of placing big aircraft orders, Naresh Goyal said. A day after smaller rival IndiGo placed a USD$15.6 billion order to buy 180 planes from Airbus in the largest jet deal in commercial aviation history, Goyal said Jet is following a "relatively modest" aircraft acquisition strategy. "Aircraft orders are not a problem... It's the easiest thing to do; but, can your balance sheet support it?" he asked.

Many carriers are growing their fleet as demand booms in India, where the economy is growing at nearly 9 percent. Jet Airways has firmed up an order pipeline of 29 Boeing 737s for purchase, and another 10 Airbus A330s for lease. The deliveries for both types of aircraft are expected to start in April 2012 and would continue over three years, Goyal said. Jet has placed another order for 10 Boeing 787s, deliveries of which are seen starting in fiscal year 2015, he said. Low-cost carrier and smaller rival SpiceJet in November agreed to buy 30 Nextgen turboprop aircraft from Canada's Bombardier for USD$915 million. "We have to be very careful in adding capacity... We are not running after market share and have to ensure that the bottom-line is alright," he said. Jet has added capacity of 8 to 10 percent over the last three years, he said. While passenger traffic in India grew 19 percent in the year to November last year, the country only has 400 commercial planes for a population of about 1.2 billion. By comparison, China has 2,600 planes. Jet Airways has no plans to hedge its jet fuel requirements and expects to improve its operating margins. "As we grow, our cost of operations per unit (aircraft) will go down hence we hope to increase our profitability," Goyal said.

Indian market showing signs of Recovery

As the entire world was crippled due to recession, Indian Aviation industry was one amongst the worst hit.
The industry  is showing some sort of recovery, was flipping through the news papers and was happy to see that the Indian market is also showing some sort of recovery.
Spicejet and Kingfisher have plans of expanding their fleet by 2012.
Spice jet is looking to add another 9 aircraft's to its fleet and surprisingly Kingfisher is looking to double itsi fleet.