Vistara likely to order over 100 aircraft in expansion bid

Full-service carrier Vistara is likely to place an order for more than 100 aircraft — a mix of narrow and widebody planes — after fresh capital infusion from the promoters soon.

Vistara is a joint venture in which Tata Sons holds a 51 per cent stake and the rest is with Singapore Airlines.

Sources told Business Standard that Roshan Joshi, senior vice-president for flight operations at Vistara, wrote to employees that the airline was in the final stages of deciding the order details.

“We are closely working with SQ (code for Singapore Airlines) and evaluating our delivery dates and the aircraft type. We expect a big triple- digit order, once finalised,” Joshi wrote.

Initially, Vistara will deploy the wide-body aircraft on high-density domestic routes for the training purpose. “We are eyeing markets in Europe, Asia, and Australia. But for initially four-to-six months, the wide-bodies would be deployed on key domestic routes,” he said.

Spokesperson for the company, however, did not respond to queries sent by the paper. Aviation consultancy firm CAPA had earlier said it expected the airline to opt for Boeing 777 for its long-haul operations.

Also, as part of its plan to fly international at the earliest, Vistara may advance its current A320 delivery schedule from June 2018 and is negotiating with the lessor in this regard. The Delhibased airline, which currently has 13 Airbus A320 aircraft in its fleet, plans to add another seven (A320 Neo) planes to make it eligible for international operations.