Our main reason for getting into the aircraft leasing business is because whenever we would go to a leasing entity abroad over the last four years, they asked us to take the plane from them, operate it abroad, give us a guarantee abroad – they don’t want anything to do with India. The market size has increased, the customer base has gotten bigger. I think ownership is obviously a very expensive option… The private aviation market in India has opened up a lot in the last two years. What has been the interest with regard to leasing the six aircraft?

Hopefully, by the end of next year, 2022, we are also looking at leasing planes to international locations. In total, we are looking at about an $18 million outlay. But it's all subject to how this first plane goes. We are planning to bring in at least six aircraft by the end of 2021-22. Similarly, airports are a bit grey – they don’t know where they want to land the new aircraft, whether to land it in an SEZ or an Indian zone. The plan is to wait for at least 60 days from the date of the first plane landing and then take it from there… Right now the civil aviation ministry and the DGCA (Directorate General of Civil Aviation) have been super helpful because they are aligned to making this work, but customs are a little grey on how the whole thing is going to work. And if things don’t work out very well, we have the option of sending the plane back. So our thought process was, you know, let’s make ourselves the guinea pigs… at least things are in our control.

What we’ve done is the first aircraft we’re going to lease to JetSetGo itself… We want to make sure leasing of aircraft is feasible in India before we go into customer commitments, see how it works out for the first three months because it is a huge deal. Have you reached a leasing agreement for the first aircraft? I think we are facing issues because we are among the first aircraft leasing companies in India and this is our first aircraft coming into India… So obviously, we’ll probably set the pathway to make everyone’s lives easier. So, at which airport does the aircraft land? The government is still working on that. For example, airports don’t have parking permission. We’re just waiting for clarity regarding customs duty, import procedures, etc., because there are so many departments involved in the import of aircraft. I’m hoping to bring in the first aircraft in the next month. We’re pretty much done now, more or less. The company plans to bring in six aircraft by the end of 2021-22.īy when can we expect the first aircraft under JetSetGo’s leasing arm to come to India? However, the first plane will be leased to the holding company to test out the feasibility of the leasing model in India. With the Hawker 850, JetSetGo is looking to become the first Indian aircraft leasing company, founder Kanika Tekriwal told Moneycontrol in an interview.

Private charter provider JetSetGo’s aircraft leasing unit will start operating from GIFT City next month, when it brings in a Hawker 850.

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