Jet Airways ( India) Ltd, the country’s biggest domestic airline, said it may exercise options to buy 20 planes from Airbus SAS and Boeing Co as it adds overseas routes.

The order, valued at $4.2 billion, is for 10 A330s made by Airbus and 10 Boeing 777s, adding to 20 planes of the same designs ordered in June 2005.

The airline wants to operate 130 aircraft by 2009, up from 54 now, Jet Airways CEO Wolfgang Prock-Schauer said in an April 27 interview.

“We will have to look at more planes beyond 2009,” said Prock-Schauer, a former vice-president of Austrian Airlines, who was hired by Mumbai-based Jet Airways in June 2003.

India overtook China last year as the biggest purchaser of aircraft, ordering more than $30 billion of new planes from Airbus, Boeing and Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica.

( www.financialexpress.com)