About a month ago, we first wrote about Vistara’s move to induct a Boeing 737 sub-fleet, which were going to be largely Jet Airways airframes being taken over and put out for Vistara. SpiceJet, the only 737 operator in the country, has already been adding the 737s by the droves, having added 23 Boeing 737 aircraft in a month after Jet Airways shut down.
Now, Vistara has informed that they will lease four Boeing 737-800 NG aircraft, which they have leased from BOC Aviation. These aircraft will join the fleet this week itself. Vistara’s new aircraft will look like this when they are eventually painted and brought into the fleet.
For the moment, however, these aircraft have started showing up at airports doing their test flights, and all you can see is the Vistara logo on the 737 airframes with the rest of the Jet Airways livery.
For the record, the airline does not plan to fly these Jet Airways aircraft in a hybrid livery such as SpiceJet. They will be painted into the Vistara colours.
The proposition to add a separate subfleet came in after the Ministry of Civil Aviation made a new requirement, requiring airlines to add aircraft within 30 days to receive slots which were going to be given away after Jet Airways shut down. Given most Jet Airways airframes were the only ones available (airlines around the globe are looking for 737s to substitute their 737 MAX aircraft which are grounded at the moment), Vistara took them in, apart from SpiceJet. It is expected that Vistara will take 6 more of these aircraft, making it a total of 10 Boeing 737s in their fleet to start, although I have also heard 15 could be the eventual number.
Like I’ve stated earlier, given the quick turnaround of these aircraft, they will not operate with the Premium Economy cabin for now. I suspect seats would have to be entirely redesigned to make them work for the 737 fleet, given the Airbus aircraft had wider seats than Boeing.
Vistara will also additionally lease a couple of A320neos during the second half of the year from BOAC. TF-NEO, one of these aircraft, is definitely coming in from the fleet of Iceland’s WOW Air, which grounded operations earlier this year. Vistara has also recruited about 500 former employees of Jet Airways to augment its operations.
I would say, get set for more Vistara flights in the coming days.
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