GoAir eyes early A320 delivery, to fly more

Wadia Group-promoted low-cost carrier GoAir on Monday said the airline was in talks with Airbus to advance the delivery of 10 planes within a year. GoAir has an all-Airbus fleet comprising eight aircraft. The airline will add two new Airbus A320s in the next two months. It had ordered 20 Airbus planes in 2006 for $1.2 billion. The ten remaining aircraft are to be delivered by April 2014.

"We are hopeful that the delivery would be preponed by an year to March 2013," said Kaushik Khona, CEO, GoAir.

The airline also announced the addition of four new destinations — Patna, Pune, Leh and Lucknow — to its domestic network, signalling its intent to focus on mini-metros and Tier II cities.

Go Airlines had no plans to fly abroad as the airline did not meet the basic criteria of having a minimum fleet of 20 aircraft for launching international operations, Khona said. The company was hopeful of breaking even in another one-and-a-half years but did not have any plans for an initial public offering, he said.

The airline's focus was to strengthen the domestic network. At present, it runs 1,162 weekly flights connecting 19 stations.

Khona also criticised Air India's desicion to reduce fares on 48 domestic routes by 3-23 per cent. "All other airlines would feel the pressure and everybody will suffer because of this."

Source: Hindustan Times