SpiceJet, one of the country’s low-cost airlines, will launch daily flights from Chennai to Coimbatore and Port Blair next month. The airline also intends to launch daily flights from Coimbatore to Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.

It is also opening a new base station at Chennai in November. Two Boeing 737-800 aircraft will be stationed at Chennai, according to Mr Siddhanta Sharma, Executive Chairman, SpiceJet.

The airline today has 14 aircraft – all Boeing 737-800. It intends to acquire 10 more Boeings over the next three years. At a press conference here today, Mr Sharma said that the regional airlines (when they come up) would not pose a threat to SpiceJet because SpiceJet did not operate in too short-haul routes.

He said that Boeings were more suited than ATRs for the routes that SpiceJet operated. The 190-seat Boeing 737-800s offered better scope to bring down fixed overhead costs than the ATRs.