Spicejet to buy 100 Airbus planes to expand fleet after Boeing 737 Max fallout

Low-cost carrier SpiceJet Ltd, which was a major customer of the now-grounded Boeing 737 Max, is now looking to buy 100 Airbus planes to expand fleet.

The budget carrier, a major global customer for the Max, may buy a “sizable” number of Airbus A321LR and XLR jets to accommodate a planned expansion, SpiceJet Chairman Ajay Singh said Tuesday. No decision has been made, he said, and the airline would consider a competing midrange jetliner if Boeing decides to build one.

Airbus has “pushed us hard since the day we started flying Boeing aircraft, and of course with the current problems, they’ve pushed us harder,” Singh said in an interview at Bloomberg’s headquarters in New York. “They have made us a commercial offer and we are evaluating it.”