On Tuesday, Tata Sons said that it had signed a letter of intent with the European aircraft maker Airbus to buy 250 aircraft. 210 narrow-body aircraft and 40 wide-body A350 aircraft will purchase by Air India.
More than 16 years ago, Air India purchased brand-new aircraft. The airline has not made an aircraft acquisition since 2005, and its most recent order was for 111 aircraft at the cost of USD 10.8 billion.
With Airbus, we have established a strong partnership. We have signed a letter of intent to purchase 250 aircraft from Airbus, Tata Sons Chairman Natarajan Chandrasekaran remarked with joy today.
Chandrasekaran said that a letter of intent signs with Airbus for the purchase of the aircraft during a virtual event that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron, attend among others.
The extremely lengthy trips have been made on wide-body aircraft.
The Tata Group has been in contact with aircraft manufacturers since taking over Air India at the beginning of last year in order to update the fleet. Air India’s chief executive, Campbell Wilson, had previously stated that the airline intended to grow both its fleet and its worldwide network, with the goal of boosting its market share to 30% on both domestic and foreign flights from India during the following five years.
In order to compete with IndiGo, which now holds more than 50% of the domestic market, the airline will be able to service short-haul locations within a four- to five-hour window thanks to the new narrowbody aircraft. It will be able to cover more ground in Australia, Europe, and North America thanks to the widebody aircraft.
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Tata Sons are now merging its aircraft division. In order to create a single full-service airline, Vistara will be incorporating into Air India, while AirAsia India and Air India Express have been combining into a single low-cost entity.
Since changing ownership, Air India has put back into service six widebody and 10 narrowbody aircraft that had been grounded. Additionally, it has started a $400 million interior renovation project for its widebody fleet, which consists of 27 Boeing 787-8 and 13 Boeing 777 aircraft.
By the end of FY24, Air India is anticipating to have added close to 50 aircraft, increasing its capacity by almost 50%.
On January 27, Wilson had earlier stated that the airline was completing a record order for brand-new aircraft.
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