Air India to buy Airbus A350 aircraft for international flights, plane delivery by March 2023

Air India has not bought a single aircraft since 2006 when it had placed orders for purchasing 111 aircraft -- 68 from the US-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing and 43 from Airbus.

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With Tata Group at the helm of affairs, Air India, the erstwhile national air carrier of the country is witnessing massive changes, right from in flight services to the fleet itself. As per a latest report, Air India has decided to procure the wide-bodied Airbus A350 aircraft made by the European plane maker. The Tata owned airliner will deploy its maiden batch of the plane on the international routes, currently served by Boeing 777 and Boeing 747. The report further states that the first plane is likely to be delivered to the airline by March 2023, although it was not immediately clear how many A350 aircraft will be purchased by Air India.

If the deal goes through, this is will be Air India's first wide-bodied plane from Airbus as the company only has Boeing wide body planes in the fleet. However, Air India has deployed smaller single aisle Airbus A320 on domestic routes in India. A wide bodied plane like the Airbus A350 has a bigger fuel tank that allows it to travel longer distances such as India-US routes. Also, Airbus is cheaper to own than the counterpart Boeing 777 and 787. 

Air India has not bought a single aircraft since 2006 when it had placed orders for purchasing 111 aircraft -- 68 from the US-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing and 43 from European aircraft manufacturer Airbus. The Tata Group took control of Air India on January 27 after successfully winning the bid for the airline on October 8 last year. This will be first plane procurement for Air India since Tata took over the airline. 

Sources on Wednesday said Air India has started asking its senior pilots if they will be interested in getting the "conversion training" to operate A350 aircraft. Air India's pilots are trained to operate the wide-bodied aircraft of Boeing. Therefore, they have to undergo "conversion training" to operate A350 aircraft of Airbus. According to Air India's website, the airline has total 49 wide-bodied aircraft -- 18 Boeing B777, 4 Boeing B747 and 27 B787 -- in its fleet. The carrier has 79 narrow-bodied planes in its fleet too.

Sources said Air India is purchasing A350 aircraft and is likely to get its first A350 plane by March 2023. Since April, the airline's chairman N Chandrasekaran -- who also is the chairman of the Tata Group -- has rejigged the top management of the airline, bringing in senior and middle-level executives who have worked in other companies of the Tata Group such as Tata Steel and Vistara.

With PTI inputs