Air India on Monday announced its decision to lease 25 Airbus narrow-body and five Boeing wide-body aircraft. This is its first major fleet expansion since Tata Sons took over the airline last January.
The aircraft include 21 Airbus A320 neos, four Airbus A321 neos and five Boeing 777-200 LRs. These will enter service from late 2022 and increase the airline’s fleet by more than 25%.
The B777-200 LRs will join the fleet between December 2022 and March 2023, and will be deployed on routes from Mumbai and Bengaluru to the United States of America. This will include flights from Mumbai to San Francisco as well as to the two international airports in New York - Newark Liberty and John F. Kennedy. Bengaluru will also get thrice-weekly service to San Francisco. Air India also provides connectivity to Chicago and Washington DC.
The fleet expansion comes five years after Air India leased 14 A320s. Its last aircraft purchase order was in 2006, which included 111 aircraft - 68 from Boeing and 43 from Airbus.
Industry watchers said the expansion move would take care of the airline’s near-term requirements until Air India places a big aircraft order for its growth strategy for the next 10 years as well as to cope with the grounding of 16 narrow-body and 10 wide-body aircraft of the total 124 in its fleet at the moment due to lack of maintenance.
The airline has said that 10 narrow-body and six wide-body planes have already returned to service in the recent past after undergoing repair work.
In a first for the airline, Air India has also announced that it would offer Premium Economy class on the five B777-200 planes.
“The decision to offer Premium Economy class is because the wide-body aircraft Air India is leasing are already equipped with these seats,” said Ameya Joshi, Founder of aviation analysis website Network Thoughts.
“These flights will offer the airline an opportunity to test how successful they are on long-haul international routes before it places a large aircraft order . Globally, there is a move towards incorporating premium economy class - they are cheaper than Business Class seats, and only slightly more expensive than Economy class seats though there is a massive differentiation in terms of leg space, more meal and beverage choices available,” she added.
Though Vistara, another airline owned by Tata group, has experience in offering premium economy class, these are restricted to domestic flights.
