India’s SpiceJet Orders 15 Q400s

SpiceJet of Gurgaon, India, has placed a firm order for 15 Q400 NextGen turboprop airliners and taken options on an additional 15 airliners.

Based on the list price for the Q400 NextGen aircraft, the firm order is valued at approximately US$446 million, and could increase to approximately US$915 million if all 15 options are converted to firm orders.

“India is witnessing substantial growth, and predominant growth is expected from cities and industrial towns which remain underserved,” said Kalanithi Maran, Chairman of the Board of Directors, SpiceJet. “As India’s most preferred low-fare airline, we are focused on catering to these markets which require an aircraft that could increase the reach to over 60 airports that could not be served by the larger jets and establishing our footprint in these markets. After an evaluation of all the aircraft in the 60 to 80-seat category, we have selected the Q400 NextGen airliner, which combines excellent reliability, economics and passenger comfort.”

“This is a very important order for us as it establishes the Q400 NextGen airliner in India,” said Gary R. Scott, President, Bombardier Commercial Aircraft. “We expect India to take delivery of 600 commercial aircraft in the 20 to 149-seat category over the next 20 years, and we believe our optimized Q400 NextGen turboprop, CRJ Series regional jets and all-new CSeries aircraft are ideally suited to capture a sizeable portion of those deliveries.”

SpiceJet currently serves 22 destinations in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka.