Mallya to shop for $2.1bn at Dubai air show

Likely to place an order for 30 jets and 20 turbo-propelled aircrafts.

Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines is likely to order 30 jets and 20 turbo-propelled aircraft at the Dubai air show, starting Sunday. All these aircraft will be used on domestic routes.

With a seating capacity of 175 "" the standard for domestic flights "" each jet carries a price tag of $60 million. Adding the prices of 20 turbo-propelled aircraft, costing $15 million each, Mallya will have to carry a $2.1-billion purse to Dubai.

"We are announcing two major deals at the Dubai air show for the jets and turbo-propelled aircraft. This is part of our network expansion plan," said Mallya, chairman, Kingfisher Airlines. He did not give details.

Aviation industry sources, however, said the plan was to buy 20 turbo-propelled aircraft and 30 jets. This will be the second major order placed by Kingfisher in a space of six months. At the Paris air show in June this year, the airline had placed orders for 15 aircraft, including five A 380s, whose total list price was about $5 billion.

The company wanted to acquire turbo-propelled aircraft ""cheaper to operate than jets"" as part of its plan to tap markets with lesser traffic.

"Some of the turbo-propelled aircraft will be based in the Northeast to service the region and others will look at southern Indian regional markets," Mallya said. He said Kingfisher Airlines, since its launch in May this year, had managed to grab a 6.1 per cent share of the market.

"We expect the trend to continue and gain more market share. We started with four flights a day and now have 52. We will need more aircraft to back our growth," he said. Mallya also said Kingfisher Airlines had bid for acquiring an equity stake in Air Sahara and was still in the race. He had recently talked of a $100-million bid.

Sources said there could be big orders at Dubai from other Indian carriers too.

At the Paris Airshow, of a total of 280 aircraft signed up by Airbus, 135 were ordered by Indian carriers. Moreover, to the estimated $35 billion Airbus can earn from these deals, Indian carriers will contribute about $15 billion.