Vistara will have 70 planes in its fleet by the middle of 2024, CEO Vinod Kanan
Vistara, a full service carrier, will continue to grow and expects to have 70 planes by the middle of 2024, Vinod Kannan, its chief Vinod Kanan, stated on Tuesday.
The airline, which is a joint venture of Tata Sons & Singapore Airlines, reported its first operating profit since its inception in December 2022.
“The percentage of international capacity has increased.” Kannan stated that 25-30% of our capacity is now deployed internationally. This is a positive development and a major win for us.”
Vistara will be merged into Air India.
Kannan stated that it will have 70 aircraft by the middle of next-year, 7 Boeing 787s included.
Vistara CEO, said that out of the 70 planes there would be 10 A321s as well as 53 A320 neos.
The 53 A320 Neos will include 10 planes with all economy classes and the rest with three classes.
The airline currently has 53 aircraft in its fleet.
Kannan stated that “We will continue expanding… more international routes will be added.”
He said that there are restrictions in terms of slots and traffic rights. We would love to fly more flights to Dubai and Singapore, but traffic rights are a constraint. He said that we had to consider other options…we will be looking at additional points in the Middle East.”
Kannan spoke out about the December quarter performance, saying that the operating environment in the past year and the quarter before it was quite favorable when it comes demand and average fare.
The airline also benefited from the deployment of wide-body planes.
“It was one the strongest quarters (December Quarter) from a revenue perspective, whether you’re looking at overall revenue or unit revenue.
Strong demand resulted in high loads and high fares. We were able to achieve a strong revenue performance. Second, the US dollar has been increasing in value and so has fuel prices. We are fortunate to have some scale with 53 aircraft. Kannan stated that the unit cost and deployment do decrease to some extent.
He also mentioned that Vistara currently has three wide-body planes in its fleet.
They have done extremely well, and there has been strong demand for flights to Europe. Flights have flown with load factors exceeding 85-90 percent. He said that this plays a positive part in the performance and growth of the airline.
The airline did not disclose the exact profit figure for the December quarter but said Monday that it had crossed USD 1 billion in revenue and is EBITDA-positive in the current fiscal year.
EBITDA is the Earnings before Interest, Taxes and Depreciation.
Vistara released Monday a statement saying that the airline reported a net loss (excluding unrealised foreign currency losses and non-operating income) in the quarter ended December 2022 for the first time since its inception.
