First of IA's leased planes to arrive today

Ashwini Phadnis

NEW DELHI, Nov. 16

THE first of the two leased Airbus A-320 aircraft, which will help Indian Airlines (IA) offer more services in the winter schedule, will arrive in Delhi late on Saturday (November 17).

Official sources told Business Line that the second Airbus A-320 aircraft, which has also been leased from the Orix Company, was likely to reach the Capital by the end of next week.

``The arrival of the two aircraft will help IA offer more services and seats for the forthcoming busy winter season,'' official sources said.

The induction of the two aircraft will take the combined fleet strength of IA and its subsidiary Alliance Air to 57 aircraft, including the Dornier.

Anticipating the arrival of more capacity, the airlines had initially come out with a short duration winter time-table valid from October 28 to November 30.

Official sources at that time said this was because the airline was expecting to add more services with the proposed induction of more aircraft shortly.

The two aircraft form part of a six Airbus A-320 aircraft lease deal, which IA has completed with the leasing company.

The airline was able to renegotiate the lease rates for all six aircraft helping IA save close to $15 million.

``The saving for IA on the six aircraft for a period five years due to the lease rates softening will be in the region of around $15 million.

What that actually means is that of the six aircraft being leased one is coming free,'' sources said.

The arrival of the aircraft should come as a boon for the airlines, which has been seeing a rise in passenger loads in the past few weeks.

Official sources said that the airline was carrying around 20,000 passengers a day during November this month up from about 18,000 passengers a day that the airline had carried during October.

Officials, however, maintained that the fear of flying from several markets was still impacting the airlines, which in earlier years used to carry 22-24,000 passengers daily.