Thai Lion Air (SL, Bangkok Don Mueang) is planning to launch flights to Colombo International, Dubai, and prospectively London in 2019 using the new A330-900 aircraft the group will be taking shortly, founder Rusdi Kirana told Bloomberg.
Amid the dispute with Boeing over the response to the October 29 crash of Lion Air's B737-8 near Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta, Kirana said that it would not slow down the group's plans of growth.
The South-East Asian LCC group has threatened the American manufacturer saying that it might cancel the entire order for 188 Boeing narrowbodies, including 137 B737-8s, one B737-9, and fifty B737-10s. Kirana said that he felt betrayed by Boeing's alleged blaming of the airline's maintenance procedures for the crash.
"We will not stop growing because of this unfortunate event but we will learn how to improve. We have a few choices for manufacturers. We have a big order with Airbus already and we will try to use these aircraft," Kirana said.
According to the ch-aviation fleets module, Lion Air Group currently has orders for 113 A320-200neo and sixty-five A321-200neo directly from Airbus. It has also committed to lease eight A330-900s from BOC Aviation. Currently, its widebody fleet includes six A330-300s, with three aircraft each operated by the Thai and Indonesian units.
