BA Boeing Co

   By Gaurav Raghuvanshi 
 

SpiceJet Ltd. (500285.BY) plans to buy 100 additional jets from Boeing Co. (BA), potentially ordering up to 205 planes as the Indian discount carrier seeks to ride the world's fastest-growing major market for commercial aviation.

Gurgaon-based SpiceJet placed the order for the 100 additional Boeing 737 Max jets at the end of last year, Boeing said in a statement on Friday. It also identified SpiceJet as a previously unnamed customer for 13 such jets.

Earlier, in 2014, SpiceJet and Boeing had announced an order for 42 of the planes. Including options on 50 more 737 Max jets, SpiceJet's order could total 205 jets, according to the Boeing statement.

Boeing didn't disclose the price of the jets, but at the published list prices, the 205 planes could cost about US$23 billion. Customers, however, typically negotiate discounts exceeding 30% with manufacturers on large orders.

Boeing 737 Max is the next generation of the Chicago-based plane maker's popular single-aisle jets. The Max is still in development and Boeing expects to start deliveries of the aircraft to customers later this year.

Boeing 737s have been "the backbone of our fleet since SpiceJet began," said Ajay Singh, the Indian carrier's chairman, according to the statement.

SpiceJet currently operates a fleet of 32 of the current generation Boeing 737 jets, in addition to 14 Bombardier Inc. Q400 turboprop aircraft that it uses on smaller feeder routes.

Indian carriers have become a major source of orders for single-aisle planes for Boeing and rival Airbus SE. Airbus this week announced it had finalized a deal with India's GoAir late last year for 72 A320neo planes, the European plane maker's competitor to the Boeing 737 Max. GoAir previously had already ordered 72 of the Airbus jetliners.

IndiGo, operated by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd. (539448.BY), has over 400 Airbus A320 planes on order, including an order for 250 jets announced in August 2015.

The International Air Transport Association, a trade body that represents some 265 airlines comprising 83% of global air traffic, predicts that India will become the third biggest aviation market after the U.S. and China, replacing the U.K., in the next 10 years.

--Robert Wall in London contributed to this article.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 13, 2017 03:58 ET (08:58 GMT)

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