Air India to lease six wide-bodied aircraft

Air India is examining leasing about six wide-bodied aircraft to add capacity and replace some planes.

Air India is examining leasing about six wide-bodied aircraft to add capacity and replace some planes whose leases expire in the next few months.

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The national carrier was looking at dry-lease as well as the wet-lease route, in case aircraft were not available through the former, AI CMD V Thulasidass said in New Delhi.

Announcing that tenders were expected to be issued shortly, he said wet-leased aircraft would be taken only from airlines and not from any leasing company.

Under wet-lease, an aircraft is leased with cockpit and/or cabin crew while under dry lease, only the plane is made available.

He also clarified that this route would be taken only if dry-leased planes were not available and wet-lease would only entail pilots and not the cabin crew.

The AI chief said the airline planned to launch flights to Mauritius with the leased aircraft. Besides, Air India also plans to launch flights from Mangalore and -- to Dubai in the near future.

He said Air India subsidiary, AI Express,would soon start operations to Kuala Lumpur from Chennai and was awaiting approval from the Malaysian government which, he hoped, would be available in the next few weeks.

However, Air India has begun these flights from Chennai last week with leased AI Express aircraft which were operating under AI codes, Thulasidass said.