As Indian carriers spread their wings globally, the Centre has made it easy to lease an aircraft. They can now wet-lease wide-bodied aircraft for a maximum of one year, as per new rules of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), the country’s civil aviation regulator. Previously, airlines were allowed to lease only for six months.

Though the relaxed norms will be available to all Indian carriers, the clearance will be subject specific to the international destinations that they intend to serve. The decision to allow wet leasing of planes for a longer period will help Indian carriers to operate more wide-bodied aircrafts.

Under the current rules, an airline can wet lease an aircraft for a period of six months, extendable by another six months. Sources said the change of rules came on a request from the country’s largest airline IndiGo.

For airlines, which mostly operate on leased aircraft, there are two primary lease options – dry and wet (or damp). Wet leases are the ones that involve leasing out an aircraft to an airline along with a crew to fly the plane and provide onboard service. Dry lease refers to taking only the aircraft on rent.

Push from IndiGo

IndiGo apparently has asked for a final approval from the civil aviation watchdog to wet lease Boeing 777 aircraft to augment the Delhi-Istanbul and Mumbai-Istanbul routes.

“After previous receipt of in-principle approval for inducting B777 aircraft on a wet lease basis from MOCA, IndiGo has now applied for final DGCA approval for these operations as per the prescribed procedure,” the company had said in a recent statement.

Interestingly, IndiGo had applied to the civil aviation ministry for exemption from the six months-only rule and allow it to wet lease Turkish wide-bodied aircraft for two years – first one year and then a one-time extension of another year.

Expansion Plans

A senior official of the civil aviation ministry says that till the time IndiGo and other players like Air India — who have aggressive route expansion plans in international operations — can get their own fleet in place, they can explore wet leasing options.

Air India and Vistara already operate twin aisle aircraft and some of the airlines are relying on older planes as they go ahead with international expansion plans. “Across players some aircraft remain grounded because supply of components are still affected due to Covid. Similarly, deliveries of aircraft are slow too because of supply chain disruptions. In such cases, it was necessary for the ministry to open up options,” the official told businessline.

Indian carriers also need wide-bodied or twin-aisle aircraft to not just enter new markets, but also deter some of the bigger US-based carriers from gaining prominence in these routes.

Ratings firm ICRA said it expects international passenger traffic for Indian airlines to witness a y-o-y growth of about 116-135 per cent to 22-24 million in FY23 and further to 25-27 million in FY24.

International hub

Aviation experts say the change in policy will allow more direct connectivity from India to the rest of the world, especially destinations that have more than six hours of travel time.

Interestingly, it will also be a step further towards pushing India as an international hub.

Civil aviation minister, Jyotiraditya Scindia, has often been pitching India to come up as a possible international hub. And one criterion for this, he had pointed out, was the need to have an increased wide-bodied aircraft fleet across Indian carriers.

At the moment, hub operations happen through the Gulf nations, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and some other South-East destinations.

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