AIR INDIA HAS terminated its wet-lease contract with Belgium-based Caribjet, which has been flying Airbus A310-300s and Lockheed TriStar 500s on behalf of Air India on certain services.
The airline signed a two-year agreement with Caribjet in 1995, which had been scheduled to run to December 1997.
The move comes as an Indian parliamentary committee has criticised Air India for incurring huge losses through the wet leasing of aircraft, on which the airline has apparently run up expenditure in excess of $150 million.
The committee has recommended that the Government provide greater autonomy to the airline's management on fleet-acquisition decisions, and expresses concern at the lack of long-term planning by the Government and the airline. The committee indicates that Air India is again expected to report a loss, of more than $65 million, for 1996-7.
Air India is approaching the end of a long-drawn-out evaluation process for new, medium-capacity aircraft, with the Boeing 777, Airbus A340 and McDonnell Douglas MD-11 under consideration.
In September, an airline-appointed committee submitted its preliminary report and is now preparing for final negotiations for the $2 billion, 20 aircraft order.
A decision on the planned Singapore Airlines (SIA) and TATA Industries joint-venture Indian domestic airline is awaiting the country's new aviation policy which is expected to be announced by the Indian civil-aviation ministry this month.
The proposal, which envisages a carrier owned 60:40 by TATA and SIA respectively, is awaiting approval from the Indian foreign-investment-promotion board. The proposed airline is yet to outline its fleet plans, although it is understood that it has been in talks with McDonnell Douglas about an order for up to 12 MD-90s.
Source: Flight International
