GoAir may place order at Paris Air Show
The airline has been unable to fly overseas as it doesn’t fulfil the criterion of having a fleet of at least 20 planes
Tarun Shukla,
tarun.s@livemint.com
New Delhi
Wadia group-owned low-cost airline GoAir (India) Pvt. Ltd is in talks with European aircraft maker Airbus SAS to place a fresh order for Airbus A320 aircraft at the Paris Air Show that starts on 20 June.
If the order materializes, it would be the second such by an Indian carrier this year after InterGlobe Aviation Pvt. Ltd-run IndiGo ordered a record 180 aircraft worth $15 billion (Rs.67,800 crore) in January to meet its expansion plans till 2025.
GoAir, currently the smallest passenger airline in the country, may also become the second Indian carrier to order the fuel-efficient A320neo, which will make its debut this decade.
The six-year-old discount carrier is planning to place an order for A320neo aircraft to drive expansion plans and the details of the order are currently being worked out, said a person familiar with the matter who declined to be identified.
GoAir could place an order for anywhere up to 50-70 aircraft, which may include several options, this official said. Airlines usually place an order with options, which they can later firm up. It’s last order was in 2006 for 10 Airbus A320 aircraft.
GoAir said it will make an announcement shortly, without specifying further details.
“We will have a press briefing in first or second week of June,” said GoAir chief executive officer Kaushik Khona.
A second person familiar with the matter said the airline was studying its “requirements” and could look at an announcement at the Paris Airshow. He, too, declined to be named.
The Mumbai-based carrier runs a fleet of 10 A320 aircraft currently, with 6.4% of the domestic market share. Its rival IndiGo, which started a year before GoAir, now controls a 19.7% market share with a fleet of 39 aircraft, while SpiceJet has 29 aircraft controlling a 13.4% market share.
All the domestic carriers in the Indian market have been able to go international barring GoAir, which despite meeting the five-year domestic flying experience falls short of the criterion of having a fleet of at least 20 aircraft.
The airline has been in a restructuring mode this year. As a part of that restructuring, Khona is returning to the parent Wadia group where he came from, he said.
Giorgio De Roni, a former chief revenue officer at Italian low-cost carrier Air One SpA, which runs a fleet of fiveA320 aircraft, is transitioning into the new role of chief executive. GoAir has also redesigned its website and launched its presence on social media sites Twitter and Facebook recently.
Consulting firm Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation in its 2011 outlook expects GoAir to hit the bourses with an initial public offering in 2011-12 to raise funds and buy aircraft.
Besides GoAir, IndiGo’s 180 aircraft Airbus order could also be firmed up at the Paris Air Show, sales chief John Leahy said on last week. “I think we will have the IndiGo order finalized and announced by the Paris Air Show,” he said.
In the midst of the global economic crisis in 2009, the only Indian carrier to announce an order at that year’s Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport was Chennai-based Paramount Airways Pvt. Ltd.
The carrier, which closed operations in 2010, had signed an agreement buy 10 Airbus A321 passenger jets and an option to buy 10 more. The order does not figure in the official Airbus aircraft order book of 2011.
Reuters contributed to this story.
