The Hindu Business Line : Indian to buy aircraft after 12 years

October 19 will go down as a red-letter day in the annals of Indian. On that day the state-owned airline is to take delivery of the first 43-Airbus it is purchasing at the European aircraft manufacturers production facility in Hamburg.

The induction will end a drought of almost 12 years for purchased aircraft to join the airline fleet. The last purchased aircraft, an Airbus A-320, joined the airline fleet in December 1994. Since then the airline has been inducting leased aircraft to meet market demand.

"The Airbus A-319 would be flown to Delhi and should arrive the following day. The aircraft should be able to operate regular flights from the last week of October after completing all the formalities," sources told Business Line.

At the moment the base as also the routes on which the new aircraft would operate have not yet been firmed up. It was in February this year that the airline signed the deal with the European aircraft manufacture for purchase of 43-Airbus aircraft at an estimated cost of Rs 9,890 crore.

The airline is to acquire 19 A-319, four A-320 and 20 A-321. The A-319 being delivered in Hamburg would be the only purchased aircraft being inducted by the airline this year. A phased schedule for the induction is to see the airline inducting six aircraft in 2007 that would be increased to 12 aircraft the following year. During 2009, Indian is to take delivery of 18 aircraft and delivery of the final six aircraft is scheduled for 2010.

All the aircraft are to offer seating in both business and economy class. The induction of the purchased aircraft would see the airline offering added facilities to its passengers, including the latest in-flight Entertainment System (IFE) and individual televisions for each passenger in business class. The Government has already approved the airlines proposal for induction of IFE system on 42 of the 43 aircraft, at an estimated cost of about Rs 280 crore.

At the moment Indian has a mixed fleet of Airbus A-320, A-319 apart from Boeing 737, Dornier and ATR aircraft.