The new Indian unit of Malaysia based low cost airlines, AirAsia has ordered 50 planes for its expansion into the Indian market.

Chief executive Tony Fernandes said that the company has ordered 50 A320-family jets valued at $5 billion just five months after the airlines added 100 jets to its order book in order to increase the total number of 475 planes. The company is expected to begin operations with planes already on order but will increase order in the future.

"We're looking at putting in almost a plane every month. We decided that sometimes when we pussyfoot around it takes too long to catch up so we decided just to go for it," Fernandes said.

AirAsia has submitted its application for a scheduled airline to the country's aviation ministry. The company said in its application that the airline will have four directors namely, Arun Bhatia, R Venkataram, Tony Fernandes and Bharat Vasvani. The airline is likely to operate fleet of 36 Airbus aircrafts in the coming five years.

The operations are being launched under a joint-venture with the Tata group company, Tata Sons Ltd and Arun Bhatia's Telestra Tradeplace Pvt Ltd to enter the Indian market. AirAsia, the Tatas and Bhatia's Hindustan Aviation have already signed pact for the joint venture. Government officials hinted that the AirAsia Investment Ltd's (AAIL) proposal was included in the agenda of FIPB meeting.

Under the agreement, AirAsia holds a 49 per cent in a joint venture while, Tata Sons have a 30 per cent stake in the venture but will not be involved in the operations and Telestra Tradeplace has the remaining 21 per cent stake in the venture. Tatas will be represented by two non-executive directors of the company.