The Hindu Business Line : Air India plans acquiring up to 100 aircraft

New Delhi, Nov 6 Air India could look at acquiring up to 100 aircraft for meeting its requirements for a five-year period beginning 2011. A clear picture on the exact numbers is likely to emerge in the next few days after a review meeting of the fleet requirement is completed here on Wednesday.

The National Aviation Company of India (NACIL), the company into which Air India and Indian have been amalgamated, is assuming a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 12 per cent in international traffic and 15 per cent in the domestic traffic as forecast for meeting its fleet requirement, sources told Business Line.

The aircraft requirement are being considered keeping in mind not only the growth in the domestic and international markets but also sixth freedom operations rights that have been given to Air India.

The sixth freedom rights allow an airline to pick passengers from a country other than its origin and carry them to a third country.

The airline is working on the assumption that the induction of these aircraft would help garner a market share of 30 per cent in the international traffic to and from India from the present 24 per cent and a 35 per cent market share in the domestic skies which it hopes to achieve by 2020-21 apart from 25-30 per cent market share of the cargo market, sources said.

The induction of the aircraft could see the airline more than double the weekly frequency of international flights from the current 600 flights to more than 1,200 by 2016-17.

At the moment it seems that the order for aircraft would be placed in such a manner that it is distributed between the European consortium Airbus Industrie and the US manufacturer Boeing, sources said.