In continuation of its operational expansion plans, SpiceJet will be hiring up to 2,000 staff, including pilots and cabin crew, of the stressed Jet Airways, according to Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, in an interview with PTI.

"We have taken significant number of people from Jet Airways. They were well qualified ad professional people. We will continue to take more Jet staff in the times to come," Singh said.

"We have taken around 1,100 people so far. Expectation is that we will go up to 2,000 people. It will be pilots, cabin crew, (people) from airport services, security...," he further added.

SpiceJet had added at least 22 planes from Jet Airways' fleet, after it temporarily shuttered its operations due to cash crunch in April. Currently, SpiceJet has around 14,000 staff and a fleet of 100 planes. It is the fourth airline after Air India, Jet Airways and IndiGo to have 100 aircrafts.

The no-frill airlines has a combination of Boeing 737s, Bombardier Q-400s and B737 freighters. It operates around 575 daily flights on an average to 62 destinations, including nine international ones, he said.

In the last week of May, SpiceJet posted a 22 percent increase in net profit to Rs 56.3 crore in the January-March period as higher fares helped the airline amid a capacity crunch in the domestic aviation market.

Singh further said that the airline has no plan to raise funds at the moment, as it is quite comfortably placed in terms of finances.

Shares of SpiceJet were trading 4.69 percent higher at Rs 152.80 apiece on NSE at 10:45 am on Monday.

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