Vistara to fly overseas by June 2018

The joint venture company between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, Vistara, is set to fly overseas from June 2018, by when it hopes to increase its fleet size to 20. It currently owns a fleet of 11 aircraft. This news comes after the government done away with the rule to have 5 years of domestic flying experience before an airline could fly abroad.In an interview to CNBC-TV18's Ronojoy Banerjee, Vistara Chief Executive Officer, Phee Teik Yeoh, said that the company is finalizing its India and overseas strategy which will be presented to the board shortly. He expects a big capital infusion into the airline from Tatas and Singapore Airlines once the board approves the plan.Below is the verbatim transcript of Phee Teik Yeoh’s interview with CNBC-TV18's Ronojoy Banerjee.Q: How long will it take to own a fleet size of 20 aircraft?A: We have 11 aircraft in our fleet today. We have two more slated to join the fleet in October this year. So, by the end of this year we would have 13 aircrafts and this order current engine options (CEO) or the A320 aircrafts the first of our Neo aircraft which is the new engine option is slated to be delivered from June 2017 and we would have achieved a full 20 aircraft fleet size by June 2018 a good two years away from today.Q: As you rightly said international plans will require a different strategy altogether because you will be obviously competing with the big names. So, are their plans of also entering into some sort of a code shared pact like we have seen other airlines do.A: In terms of going to code sharing it was clarified finally through the aviation policy that at last Vistara will be able to undertake what we call the domestic code share, something that we have been getting a lot of requests from the major foreign carriers who are eagerly looking forward to not just partnering with Vistara but also deepening their partnership with Vistara.