Air India to increase fleet size by a third to 400 planes by 2027

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." 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.