Ajit Karn
Air India completes a significant acquisition from Airbus of 250 aircraft.
A source said on Thursday that Air India has finalised a deal with Airbus to buy about 250 planes. The deal is expected to be made public next week.
The person also said that the airline has made a deal with Boeing to buy about 200 planes.
Specific details couldn’t be found right away, and Air India didn’t say anything right away about the deals.
Air India, which is owned by the Tata group, is growing both its business and its fleet.
Campbell Wilson, the head of Air India, said on January 27 that the company is finishing up a historic order of new planes.
Air India used to be owned by the government, and more than 16 years ago, it bought new planes.
Since 2005, it hasn’t bought a single plane, and the last order was for 111 planes, 68 from Boeing Co. and 43 from Airbus. That deal was worth USD 10.8 billion.
The source told PTI that the deal with Airbus for about 250 planes has been finalised and that the announcement is likely to come next week.
The deal is likely to include 40 Airbus A350 wide-body planes, and Air India will be the first airline in India to use them.
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Wide-body A330s were used by Air India in the past.
CAPA, an aviation consulting firm, said on Wednesday that Indian airlines are likely to order up to 1,700 planes by 2024. Air India may be the first to do this by placing an order for 500 planes.
At the moment, less than 50 wide-body aircraft are used by Indian airlines, which is a small number for such a big market. CAPA said that Emirates alone has a fleet of more than 260 wide-bodies.
IndiGo just started using a wet-leased B777 to fly wide-body planes on the India-Turkey route, and the company plans to add two more of these planes.
