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Rajya Sabha
Air India has wet-leased one A340-300E aircraft from M/s. Jet Airways for the period 9.7.2005 to 27.7.2005 to operate approximately 19 RT flights at USD 4200 per block hour. This information was given to the Rajya Sabha by the Minister of Civil Aviation, Shri Praful Patel in a written reply.
Due to critical shortage of aircraft, paucity of time and very short lease period of less than one month, no tender was floated by Air India. The wet-lease proposal was approved by Air India Board in its meeting held on 8th July 2005.
This short term measure had to be adopted in the overall interest of Air India as it was facing acute shortage of B747-400 aircraft capacity during July, 2005 entailing withdrawal of one B747-400 aircraft from scheduled operations. Not responding to this situation would have resulted in cancellation of flights with a consequent adverse impact in terms of expenditure on endorsement of tickets to other carriers, hotel accommodation, denied boarding charges etc., besides also leading to (i) loss of credibility in the market and inconvenience to passengers on the highly competitive India/London route, (ii) problems in retaining slots at London Heathrow in the event of non-operation of flights and (iii) Reduced out-bound loads in August 2005, due to the non-carriage of inbound traffic.
MC/GK
abha
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