Jet May Convert $4.2 Bln Boeing, Airbus Options to Firm Orders

New Delhi: Jet Airways (India) Ltd., the nation's biggest domestic airline, may convert an estimated $4.2 billion of options to buy planes from Airbus SAS and Boeing Co. to firm orders as it aims to fly more overseas routes.
Jet Airways, which in June ordered 10 Boeing 777 planes and 10 Airbus A330 aircraft, will need more planes to fly to more cities in the U.S. and Europe in the long term, the airline's Chief Executive Wolfgang Prock-Schauer, said in an April 27 interview in Mumbai. Jet Airways, which had options to buy 10 more of each type of aircraft from both planemakers, will have a fleet of 130 planes by 2009, Prock-Schauer said.
Indian carriers including Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines Ltd. are ordering more planes as rising affluence enable more of the nation's 216 million middle-class people to travel by air within the country and overseas. Indian carriers bought more than $30 billion of aircraft last year, making the country the largest buyers of Airbus and Boeing aircraft in Asia.
01/05/06 Anand Krishnamoorthy/Bloomberg

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