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.

spicejet to be rebranded

One of India's low cost airlines is all set to be re branded. It will no more be called spicejet, it will be called as Sun Airlines. This is after the media Barron of south India and the owner of sun network Mr Kalanidhi Maran had acquired almost 40% of the airlines stake to become the single large stake owner of the airlines. Thus propelling a change in name. Chairman and owner of Kingfisher Airlines Dr Vijay Malya has expressed his wishes and has given Mr Maran a welcome to airline industry in one of his twitter messages.