Air India -now back with founder Tata Group - has been put on the fast track to rapid expansion. The airline will induct 19 wide-body and 50 narrow-body aircraft by next March. To fuel this growth, AI is hiring 550 cabin crew and 50 pilots every month. Inducting new planes will help the airline resolve one of the biggest grouse of customers - dilapidated cabin of the old fleet - and spread its international network with North America and Europe being the priority areas. The airline had recently ordered 470 aircraft, including 70 wide bodies.
“We will be inducting 19 new wide body aircraft by the end of next March. (Once that happens) from mid-2024, we will start sending our 40 existing wide body (27 Boeing 787s and 13 B777s) for complete refurbishment. Their interiors will be completely scrapped and these planes will get everything brand new from seats to inflight entertainment (IFE) and onboard Wifi as part of our $400 million upgrade project. By mid-2025, all our twin aisles will have absolutely new cabin product,” AI MD-CEO Campbell Wilson said.
The new wide bodies being inducted this fiscal, starting with the Airbus A350s, will have onboard WiFi. While 17 of the 19 twin aisles will be used for augmenting fleet, AI has recently started talks for inducting two more B777s so that it can retire two wide bodies.
The narrow body fleet makeover will be faster with a majority of AI group’s full service single aisles getting facelift by next September. “We are going to induct 50 single aisles this fiscal. By September 2024, 75-80% of our full-service single aisles will be brand new,” he said.