We are in talks with the Government. We need to finalise the terms and conditions of the guarantee sooner than later. The higher costs being incurred by us currently on funds being raised for the aircraft purchase would, however, be refunded when the guarantee is made available.

There are apprehensions that the merger of Air India and Indian would lead to cutting down of flights.

There is no decision as yet either on a review or on curtailment of flights. The desired goal of the new airline will be to provide a daily frequency to every flight. If it is not a daily flight, we would like to convert it into one. Gradually and, as far as possible, we would like to make the flights that are currently hopping point-to-point flights. This basically means that if there is a flight that goes from point A to point B before reaching its final destination, we will see whether we can link point A to the final destination directly.

In the international arena, we would prefer either one-stop or non-stop flights. Also, international flights should be de-linked from Mumbai and should originate and end in Delhi or Mumbai.

We also need to have major non-stop flights from other metros such as Chennai and Bangalore and from Hyderabad, Ahmedabad and Kerala also. After the launch of the daily non-stop flight between Mumbai and New York (which takes off on August 1) we will also launch a non-stop flight from Delhi to New York.

This is likely to happen as early as the forthcoming winter schedule, as we will be getting some more aircraft this year that will have the endurance to fly non-stop.

We are also looking at operating a non-stop service from Bangalore to San Francisco soon.

Is Air India looking to have a hub in Europe?

In one sense, we already have a hub as we operate to Frankfurt, Paris, Birmingham and other points. We have planned more flights and scissor operations through Europe. This basically means that an Air India flight will transport flyers from India to a point in Europe from where they can board another Air India flight to their final destination.

Over the next two-three years, we plan to have five-to-six daily flights from India going to the hub and exchanging passengers on to other Air India flights to take them to their final destinations.

There are rumours that Air India is examining the option of having a new hub in Europe.

We are examining possible cities in Europe where we can have a hub. At the moment, we would not like to disclose the names.

The passenger traffic market is growing. Does the airline feel it has enough aircraft on order or does it plan to order more to benefit from the boom?

We envisage doing at least six non-stop flights to the US from various points in India. For this, we would require at least 12 aircraft and also some reserve aircraft.

This means we will need at least four aircraft if not more (The airline has ordered eight Boeing 777-200 Long Range aircraft that are to be used to operate non-stop flights between India and the US).

Besides, a study is also being done to evalute the need for more aircraft for domestic operations.

There is a feeling that shortage of pilots may hamper the non-stop India-US flights being planned by the airline.

We are a growing airline and as we add aircraft we will need more pilots.

But we do not expect any shortage of pilots, especially for the non-stop flights in the near future.