While all the seven Boeing 737s would be on lease, the airline would purchase its first aircraft in January next year, as per the agreement it has entered into for 20 planes with the US aircraft manufacturer this January, SpiceJet director Ajay Singh said in New Delhi.

The private airline, which has signed a deal with Boeing for supply of 20 aircraft with full deliveries scheduled till 2008-end, currently operates the new generation Boeing 737s with 189 seats in an all-economy configuration.

It would get two aircraft in August and two more by December. Singh said the SpiceJet, despite the end of the holiday season and beginning of monsoon, had "experienced only a minor drop in the load factor but not an appreciable one".

Quoting official figures, Singh said SpiceJet had the maximum load factor of 88.28 per cent among all the airlines in May this year, compared with 80.6 per cent of Jet Airways [Get Quote], 82 of Air Deccan, 71 of Indian Airlines, 76 of Air Sahara and 63 of Kingfisher.

The SpiceJet official said the overall average passenger load factor of SpiceJet since it launched operations this May was over 90 per cent "though we were expecting about 50 per cent in the first few months".

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Asked whether the airline was planning to further lower fares in the upcoming lean travel season, he said the airline's one-way fares were available in five to six fare buckets, increasing in levels with the most expensive fares being almost 60 per cent lower than regular full economy fares.

"We will look at adding more seats in the lower brackets to further attract second and third AC rail travellers in the lean season," Singh said.

SpiceJet's Delhi-Mumbai fares range between Rs 1699-Rs 4899 and Delhi-Goa between Rs 2399-Rs 6799 and Mumbai-Goa from Rs 899-Rs 2399. The airline now operates primarily on these sectors along with cities like Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Pune.

On its route expansion plans, Singh said the airline planned to start operations in eastern and southern parts of the country after getting the new aircraft, besides adding capacity on the existing ones.