The contract of the century? According to Reuters, Air India has revised its needs for new planes upwards and could order “at least” 500 new planes from Airbus and Boeing for a value of several tens of billions of dollars. Until today we were talking about 300 planes.
It must be said that the company (which is now a subsidiary of the Indian conglomerate Tata) must quickly renew its fleet -its last order for new aircraft dates from 2006 with more than 100 aircraft purchased from Airbus and Boeing- in order to take advantage of the strong recovery of the air traffic.
And the ambitions are high: Air India aims to become a “world-class airline (and targets) a 30% market share” as low-cost competition in the country gains significant market share. .
Airbus would benefit from Boeing setbacks
The company would order 400 single-aisle aircraft (A320neo, A321 and 737 MAX in particular) and 100 wide-body aircraft (A350, 787 Dreamliner, 777).
If the information has not been confirmed, an internal Air India memo addressed to its pilots hints: “Air India is in the process of augmenting its current fleet with the A350 aircraft type. You are requested to agree to undergo conversion training on the A350”.
However, this gigantic order could encounter delivery problems. Airbus is struggling to keep up and has already indicated that it will miss its annual delivery target. On Boeing’s side, the 777X certification issues are likely to prolong the delays (which could benefit Airbus).
As a result, Air India has already announced that it has added 30 leased aircraft (25 Airbus and 5 Boeing) to its fleet over a period of 15 months.
Source: BFM TV
