First aircraft leased from GIFT City Ahmedabad

NEW DELHI: In a first for India, a desi aviation company here has taken an aircraft by leasing it from India. Leading private aircraft and helicopter operator JetSetGo said it is the first Indian leasing business to directly import an aircraft (Hawker 800 XP) through a lease of IFSC GIFT City, Ahmedabad. Earlier, a helicopter was leased from Gift City and this is the first time for an aircraft.
The Hawker 800 XP imported from the UK landed at Mihan-SEZ on Thursday. It was later flown to Delhi to be delivered to Indo Pacific Aviation, an arm of JetSetGo.
“This aircraft was brought into the SEZ for the purpose of leasing, promoting MRO and offering other ancillary services in the region. To lease out the aircraft, the company is experimenting with a novel financing strategy wherein JetSetGo plans on using the ‘pay-as-you-go’ arrangement.
Under this model, the company gets compensated based on how much the aircraft flies. In addition to this, JetSetGo is also looking into revenue-sharing arrangements,” JetSetGo said in a statement.
JetSetGo Aviation founder-CEO Kanika Tekriwal said: “With the import of the Hawker 800 XP, we are proud to be the first Indian leasing company to bring an aircraft into the country directly. This is… a historic move for India’s aviation industry as a whole…. we want to ensure that the leasing of aircrafts becomes feasible in India. Furthermore, we are planning to bring in at least six aircrafts by the end of 2021-22, and by the end of 2022, we will also look at leasing planes to international locations.”
The lucrative business of leasing aircraft by Indian companies is so far almost entirely handled by companies abroad. This year’s Union Budget had proposed tax holiday for capital gains and tax exemption on aircraft lease rentals paid to foreign lessors to leasing companies based in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at Ahmedabad’s GIFT City.
At present, all Indian airlines have leased aircraft from foreign countries like Ireland and Singapore and payments made in forex. India currently has 700 aircraft (commercial side). Not a single of them was so far leased in India. Indian airlines have over 800 planes currently on order that are to be delivered in the next four to five years. The Modi government wants to make IFSC a global financial hub for aircraft lessors.