How SpiceJet fliers boarded a colourless flight

By Anirban Chowdhury and Pratik Bhakta

MUMBAI: SpiceJet's passengers travelling earlier this week to Mumbai from Kolkata were in for a surprise when they boarded an almost white aircraft standing on the runway, readying for boarding.

The fuselage was all white while the engine was painted a dark blue; very different from SpiceJet's signature fiery red. The only thing that assured them they were on the right aircraft was the registration code VT-SLC.



"An airhostess explained to us that this was a recently leased plane and hadn't been coloured yet," said a passenger who didn't want to be named.
SpiceJet, which had to return a large chunk of its planes to lessors last year because of a cash crunch is slowly getting them back, after its earlier promoter Ajay Singh bought it back from Kalanithi Maran. Two planes from lessor BBam LLC have joined the fleet in the last few weeks, according to senior executives.



"We fly it (the plane) as we do not want to ground it to paint it yet. It will get painted later. It is one of the aircraft returned to us," said Sanjiv Kapoor, chief operating officer of SpiceJet.