SpiceJet Ltd plans to add seven Boeing 737 ‘next generation’ (NG) aircraft during the current fiscal. Most of the capacity increase will be deployed in international markets, for which it has secured rights , says the company’s annual report for 2012-13.
During 2012-13, the Chennai-based Sun Group company inducted four Boeing 737 NGs and eight Bombardier Q400s aircraft, taking its fleet size to 52.
SpiceJet added 14 domestic airports and six international airports to its network.
Global operations
Its international operations, which were earlier limited to Colombo and Kathmandu, spread to Dubai, Kabul, Male, Riyadh, Guangzhou and Sharjah.
The company also added Calicut, Port Blair, Amritsar, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Jabalpur, Hubli, Belgaum, Udaipur, Mysore, Pondicherry, Allahabad, Nanded and Lucknow as new domestic airports.
With the above network SpiceJet has a national presence with exposure in three key segments - main line domestic routes (amongst Tier I & Tier II cities), regional domestic routes (amongst Tier II & Tier III cities) and international routes.
The airline carried 12.75 million passengers.
Cost control
SpiceJet hopes to control operating costs by importing aviation turbine fuel.
It is the first airline to get approval from the Director General of Foreign Trade to import ATF directly from the overseas market.
Aircraft fuel expenditure for SpiceJet increased 28 per cent to Rs 2,803 crore in 2012-13, against Rs 2,196 crore in the previous year.