The aircraft have been sought on dry lease (without cockpit crew) from the last quarter of 2000 to enable the airline to expand capacity and restore some of its flights in the winter schedule, airline officials said here on Tuesday.

According to the tender the airline has "invited offers for dry lease of three to six Airbus and one-two Boeing 747-300 Combi aircraft with two class configuration."

The airline has sought aircraft with General Electric (CF6-80C2) engines for both the aircraft with 747s having 32 seats in the business class and 261 in the economy. For the A310s, the seating is to be 20 and 180 respectively.The Airbus aircraft should not be more than 12 years while the Boeing not more than 15 years, the tender said.

The last date for submission of offer is May 30, 2000 the tender said adding that as "the government procedures do not permit post tender negotiations-except with the tenderer offering the best financial terms-you are requested to submit your best terms at this stage itself."

The airline has set up a committee under the chairmanship of commercial director VK Verma to study the requirements, based on which the number of aircraft would be decided, the officials said.

The airline's present strategy is to improve utilisation, tap routes with potential and deploy planes with right capacity.

This is the first time that AI, which had been unable to expand its fleet for quite some time because of financial constraints, is going in for dry lease in such large number of aircraft.

The last time it took on lease two Airbus A310 aircraft ended in termination of the contract mid-way with AI being asked to pay a little over Rs 100 crore as compensation.

Meanwhile, the management has strongly denied the charge by the AI employees guild that the highly sophisticated Boeing 747-400 hangar has many shortcomings and proved to be counter productive on account of various defects arising of faulty and ill-conceived structuring.

The guild had advised its members from the engineering department, who are mainly technicians, not to work in the new hangar in view of the "safety hazard and difficulties encountered by our service engineers" till the problems are overcome. The guild was trying to highlight the defects in the new hangar as a pressure tactic on the management to achieve their goals during the negotiations which are underway with regard to emoluments and other service matters, an official said.