"London is on our plans", Anil Goyal, commercial director, IA said when asked about new destinations the carrier was planning to start operations.
IA is planning to lease over 17 aircraft over the next few months including 12 long haul aircrafts to bridge the demand gap till the acquisition of the new fleet of 43 aircraft later next year.
"We expect the delivery of our new fleet in September 2006 and for the interim period we plan to lease 12 wide-body long haul aircraft, five Airbus 319 and few more A320s over the next few months to meet the requirements," he said.
While the A320s are expected to arrive on February next year, five A319s are expected to arrive next month to be in operations for domestic routes, he said
Goyal said the airline was also planning to lease six jets and turbo-propelled aircraft like ATRs as a part of its strategy to service regional routes with lower traffic density.
The 12 wide-bodied aircraft will also be leased soon to boost the international operations. Asked about the type of aircraft for the long-haul aircraft IA was looking at, he said. "We are looking at all the options and availability of the aircrafts". IA currently has a fleet size of 65 aircraft.
On the winter schedule of the carrier with regard to any additional flights or prior information on disrupted flights, Goyal said, "the introduction of additional flights depends on day-to-day requirements and we would request passengers to leave their contact numbers while filling for tickets to enable us giving them prior information on flight rescheduling.
The four-year long wait of Indian Airlines to acquire 43 Airbus aircraft came to an end in September with the cabinet committee on economic affairs clearing the airline's proposal to acquire 43 Airbus aircraft at an estimated price of Rs 9,890 crore (Rs 98.9 billion).
Airlines in India got a major relief earlier this month as government exempted leasing of aircraft and engines from foreign companies from withholding tax for another six months.
With these airlines still on a leasing spree to meet their increasing operation of flights including some new destinations, the government has extended this tax benefit for six months more till the end of this fiscal.