Air India to increase fleet size by a third to 400 planes by 2027: CEO
- In a media roundtable at its headquarters in Gurugram, Air India CEO Campbell Wilson said aircraft deliveries in 2025 are expected to be slower compared to 2024, partly due to the strike at Boeing's manufacturing facilities in the US.
Tata Sons-owned Air India is aiming to increase the group's fleet capacity by a third to 400 aircraft by 2027, its chief executive Campbell Wilson said on Thursday. In a media roundtable held at its headquarters in Gurugram, Wilson also said aircraft deliveries in 2025 are expected to be slower compared to 2024. The seven-week-long strike at Boeing's manufacturing facilities in the United States is one of the reasons for the slow deliveries, followed by supply chain challenges.
Responding to Mint's question, he said, "Boeing strike lasted a while, the 737 production was also slowed through an even longer period than that. That does have an impact on the construction of their aircraft, so the guidance is that it's going to be six months-plus delay to the narrow body deliveries. Every airline is impacted by it and we just have to adjust."
Also Read: ‘Six months is reasonable…’: Tata-owned Air India’s CEO Campbell Wilson on Boeing aircraft delivery delay
He also said that there is a slowdown in deliveries of 50 white tail aircraft that were expected to join Air India's fleet by December 2024. "Out of the total 50 white tail Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, at least 35 have joined the fleet. These planes are being operated by Air India Express. 50 white tail aircraft, all of them were to come by December this year. They will stretch up to June next year and that in itself has a little bit of impact." said Wilson. White tail aircraft are those that were originally manufactured for a particular airline, but were later delivered to another carrier.
On 12 November, Air India completed its much-awaited merger with Vistara to create an integrated airline, partly owned by Singapore Airlines, that will be flying 120,000 passengers daily and connect more than 90 destinations. The completion of the amalgamation, which was announced in November 2022, came within six weeks of the integration of Air India Express and AIX Connect.
FLIGHTPATH 2025
Air India group is in the middle of its five-year transformative journey called Vihaan.AI. As per the plan, the group is in its third phase or 'the climb phase', which commenced in April 2024 and will end in March 2027. The group is confident about the passenger demand in calendar year 2025, and believes that 2025 will be a year in which the airline will put all pieces together that it worked on in the last two years.
Also Read: Air India-Vistara merger completed: Tata-group airline becomes India’s largest international carrier; here’s how
To another Mint question, Wilson said, "Passenger travel demand is a function of GDP (gross domestic product) optimism, which could be 1-2 two points higher than GDP. GDP is forecast to be 5-6%, so there's going to be significant demand in the market. What happens to the global economy that also has an impact, on international travel particularly, I guess time will tell, but still we're very confident about 2025 from a demand perspective."
Last month, the RBI forecast the country's GDP to expand by 7.2% in the current fiscal year, but several global agencies expect the economic growth to decelerate going forward.
Wilson believes that 2025 will be a year of 'heavy lifting', starting with the retrofit of legacy aircraft, but the group is confident that it will start bringing all the pieces together on a tighter and more consistent note. "2025 will be a period of a lot of heavy lifting in the transformation of Air India. While most of it has actually been done, right from IT systems merger of the four airlines, induction of 100 aircraft, establishment of the new premises, recruitment of people and training systems and everything else. The year 2025 is really about when we start bringing all of the pieces into a level of efficiency and consistency and performance. They're ultimately here and for the moment we've got a lot of extremes," he said.
In the early part of 2025, Air India will start the retrofit programme of its legacy widebody aircraft fleet, which consists of 40 Boeing 777 and 787 planes, and complete it by mid-2027. The retrofit programme includes new seats, in-flight entertainment system, galleys etc. The airline has already earmarked $400 million for this and retrofitting of narrow-body aircraft has already commenced.
Also Read: Air India-Vistara merger: How it affects Club Vistara, CV Points, and co-branded credit cards—explained
Next year, Air India expects substantial growth from domestic and short-haul international network, mainly benefiting from the retrofit programme, as legacy widebody aircraft will be grounded for an interior overhaul.
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First Published:28 Nov 2024, 08:44 PM IST
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